RFUW NC South East 1
Sunday 31st January 2010
Hammers nail Amazons
Hammersmith arrived at Woodbridge the
underdog lying last in the league with the Amazons second. An
expectant home crowd quickly became aware that this wasn’t going to
be a walk over as they took play straight to our 22. We recycled
though and despite some fumbling Sam Burton, in black tights and
dark red hair, made a blistering run over 50 metres to their 22 but
conceded a penalty. The first scrums went H&F’s way as the
Amazons pack, normally reliable, were a bit dozy. The play remained
in their end before Captain ‘EJ’ Stearn and Sam broke out on the
right for Magic to score after 10 minutes. This wide play looked
the answer their central defending.
Their kick off pinned us back in our half battling to find the
space to make any progress against their solid forwards and
effective defence where the only light was another good combination
run from Magic and Sam where Magic was pushed out before the off
load - wasting a good attack position. Their busy-body 10, Sophie
Tauchert kicked over and put Sam under pressure in defence to
conceded a penalty. From this platform they re-attacked using their
forwards who spun it out to their dangerous winger Althea Binfor
requiring a try-saving tackle from Magic.
There was no respite though as they attacked again - fed by the
Amazons insistence in taking route one in attack and feeding them
the opportunity to dispossess and counter. Frustration grew amongst
the watching crowd as the Amazons missed several chances to exploit
the overlap out wide. Karen Fletcher broke through the first tackle
at one point offloading to EJ but such moves were well covered by
their forwards despite our pack slowly strengthening and Beth
Kinlan’s girls starting to win against the head. Their answer was
to come round and overwhelm Morph trying to feed quick ball to Nick
having a good game at 10.
The second half saw us hold play in their half, Beth and the
front row won scrum after scrum against the head - and the
occasional penalty. Our runners tried first the blind side and then
out wide but two or three times this resulted in EJ spilling
forward in the tackle. Just as we thought that the early try was a
one-off, Nick switched sides, the three-quarters found the overlap
and EJ scored.
Rather than this being the catalyst for more of the same - the
visitors dictated the pattern, disrupting and interfering the
Amazons back play and tempting them to run at them rather than
around them. This bogged play down in the centre-field for much of
the second half except for the occasional foray including some
tasty mauling from the Amazon pack. But it was the visitors that
pulled the rabbit from the hat by doing to us exactly what we
should have been doing to them as their irritating winger, Althea
Binfor, ran around our Sam and Magic to score on 30mins,
converted by Tauchert. Three minutes later they did it again! This
time running through Amy, Sam and Magic. It
is unconverted but, despite a brave run from Sam, it is enough for
the final whistle to raise a deafening cheer from a clearly
exhilarated Hammersmith & Fulham.
Final score Woodbridge Amazons 10 - Hammersmith & Fulham
12
Forward of the Match - Karen Fletcher
Back of the Match - Sam Burton
Woodbridge Amazons: 1 Hayley Charles, 2 Beth Kinlan, 3 Deb
Dumbill, 4 Ali Hale, 5 Karen Fletcher, 6 Sarah Cousins, 7 Alice
Reidy, 8 Stephanie Cotton, 9 Morven McAlpine, 10 Nick Pitman, 11
Amy Smith, 12 EJ Stearn (Capt), 13 Titilia Maharaj, 14 Sam Burton,
15 Emma Johnson. Replacements; 16 Charlotte Grainger.
Hammersmith & Fulham: 1 Steph Scaramella, 2 Ingrid Aston, 3
Caroline Peyrel, 4 Clara Kelly, 5 Janna Aso, 6 Kat Butler (Capt), 7
Clothilde Bressac, 8 Amanda Afoa-Paterson, 9 Ellaine Gelman, 10
Sophie Tauchert, 11 Alicia Fidler, 12 Alex Attwood, 13 Audrey
Courteille, 14 Alethea Binfor, 15 Louise Lumley. Replacements: 16
Vao Maava.
