Essex County RFUW

It is not only the boys in Essex that are doing well - This weekend the Essex u124 and Under 17 girls attended a RFUW rugby festival in North Wales. 

The Essex Under 17’s and 14’s girls travelled across the border to Wales on the Saturday 11th of February for their first ever tour to take part in a triangular U14’s match and to take on a Newport Regional team.  The under 14’s played two excellent games against teams from Garndiffaith and Newport beating them 55 – 0 and 45 – 5 respectively.  Try’s came from Sam Smith, Rhea Mills, Hannah McCready, Ellie Martin, Emily Clark, India Harvey, Charlotte McCready, Emily Scott and Siobhan Allison.

The Under 17’s opposition were the Welsh Regional Team – RBT.  After conceding a try and conversion in the initial exchanges, the Essex girls settled down to playing good fast open rugby to claw back to an extremely convincing win by 38 points to 7 with try’s from Veronica Ely, Francesca Tomassi, Kat Emmerson (twice), Natalie McClaranon with 4 of the 6 try’s being converted by Libby Peak and Cherelle Alphonse.  All three games were very typically welsh physical games but the Essex Girls under the cuidance of their Essex Coaches relied on skills to out try their opponents.

Chairwoman of Essex County RFUW Christine Emerson was pleased with the performance of the girls “ We only began the Essex County side at U14 and U17 this year and they have already shown that they are a County side to be reckoned with.  We are still concentrating on developing the women and girtls game in Essex and with the girls that came on tour this year it shows that we must be on the right track.  Though the main intention was Rugby as Sunday dawned bright and damp, spirits were high as all the girls attempted to climb the walls of the Welsh International Climbing Centre, with much laughter and team spirit, every girl and adult managed to climb at least one wall.  This whole venture has benefited the girls who have bonded well into a team.”