Thatto Heath Crusaders 32-10 Warrington Wolves
There was a certain buzz amongst the girls during the warm up. Don’t know if this was simply itching to play after missing the week before, the knowledge of after match cake (from birthday girl and captain for the day Sophie Morris) or simply that it was a local derby?
The buzz certainly translated to the field as they dominated play against a big, mobile and handy Warrington team. Indeed, against the run of play they took an early lead. Credit to the girls as this had no effect on their play and they stormed back up the pitch and played mostly in the Warrington half. If not for a few handling errors then we would have been well up. It took a barnstorming charge by Sophie Mitchell to put us level, what a try!
As a team we then put some good stuff together with ball in hand. Some determined running from the forwards and some fleet of foot from our half backs really took us forward. As we got close to their line the wrecking ball that is Lydia (Bob to us) wasn’t going to be stopped. Following such line busting runs with massive defensive efforts deservedly saw her take the Parents Player of the Match.
The line speed dropped somewhat at times and this gave Warrington some hope of posting further points, and that they did. However, we were never going to be outscored. With the luxury of having numbers to allow us to rotate players, bringing fresh legs on at key times maintained our dominance.
It’s never easy to single out one player when you get such a great team performance, but that is the coaches dilemma and our player of the match was to Beth. We’d asked her to take the loose forward position and she played brilliantly to her strengths with some massive runs from the base of the scrum and also great defence.
The most pleasing aspect by far though is the way the team played together, everyone of you gave your all and backed up teammates throughout the match. You all thoroughly deserved the win and that birthday cake – you can run it off at training this week.
