Sunday 26th October

Basford v Folkestone U18's

Week 2 of the league calender saw the girls travel down into Kent to play Folkestone Fillies.
Travelling down the M20 in pouring rain didnt look like it was going to make for a quick running game of rugby. However on arrival the rain suddenly stopped and allowed the 1st half to be played in overcast conditions.
With the ball becoming greasy and slippy due to the wet ground the early play was a stop start affair with both sides making untold handling errors.
For the first 10 minutes Folkestone had the Basford girls on the back foot but could not find a way to penetrate the Basford defence. Having soaked up the early Folkestone pressure the girls started to dominate at the rucks and mauls, and some good passing from Jen allowed the back line of Emily, India, Tash(BirthdayGirl), Siobhan, Sam and Frenchie to continually run at the Folkestone defence. Only some poor handling at times stopped the girls applying more pressure on the home side.
The breakthrough came with an excellent drive from the forwards which allowed Jen to go over to make it 5-0. Emily duly converted to make it 7-0.
Shortly after this another great piece of pressure from the forwards led by MCB gave Jen the opportuntiy to feed scottie who released India with a telling pass and she went over to make it 12-0. Emily stepped up to convert it 14-0.
Turning round in the 2nd half, the weather had changed and the girls were now playing at times in torrential rain which again caused some uncharacteristic handling errors.
The forwards were causing the home side all sorts of problems and some excellent tackling from Stumpy, Jemma, Megan, Francis and frankie kept the imputus on going forward. Emily in the centres was running the game with some excellent interplay with India. Some good support play midway through the 2nd half almost increased the score when mouse was running through in support to recieve the ball only to be bundled into touch just short of the line.
It wasnt long though before the girls got the further breakthrough when frenchie went over to make it 19-0.
India increased the lead almost straight from the restart following some great handling to make it 24-0, this was quickly followed by Frankie coming forward to support the forwards and recieve the ball to power over 29-0. Emily duly converted to make it 31-0. With time ebbing away the girls mounted one last attack and some excellent support play from Francis saw her recieve the ball and go over to make it 36-0.
Despite the conditions it was a good alround performance from the girls with the forwards doing their job and pressuring the opponents and the backs using their speed to run lines and break the defence.

Well done to all those girls.

Man of the match as voted by Folkestone Emily Scott.

After match honours also went to Basford largely due to the fact that Jens mouth can take a whole mars bar Ha Ha Ha

Thanks to Folkestone for your hospitality and we look forward to seeing you all shortly at Basford.

Sunday 26th Oct

Basford v Folkestone U15's

After a sluggish start the Basford girls were stung into life following a break from the folkestone backs which resulted in them going over to take the lead 5-0. It took a further 12 minutes of attacking play before Basford got the breakthrough when Abi Graham went over to level the scores 5-5. 2 further tries by Abi and Abbie Cook both of which were converted by Lucy wood gave the girls a half time lead of 19-5.
Early in the second half Lucy herself powered over the line to make it 24-5 and then successfully put away the conversion 26-5. The Basford girls started to increase the pressure on the Folkestone line which resulted in further tries for Olivia, Yasmin, abbie and Layla (2) with lucy successfully converting one try.
Despite the appalling weather conditions that caused both teams to make many handling errors, the Basford girls game in the second half was by far their best yet with some telling drives by the forwards which was backed up by some penetrating drives from the backs.
The girls are now beginning to settle as a team and there were some excellent performances out on the pitch in the 2nd half. Lucy was ever present around the pitch with her tenacious tackling both in attack and defence. Abi graham chased every ball that was pumped up field, and the forwards in Amy, Bron, Katie, Maddy and Lucy were a force to be reckoned with.
Layla at scrum half gave the centres, led by Olivia and Yasmin plenty of opportunity to attack the Folkestone line with some excellent distribution and feed the backs to get them pushing the Folkestone line with some fast support on the wings from claire and Abi.
An excellent performance all round from the girls.

(match report courtesy of Trevor)