St Mary's Too Good For Angels

After a long and hard preseason Mary's were ready and needing of a game. An impressive run of four 20 minute quarters with an abundance of players, just highlighted how much quality, depth and commitment we have to work with this year.

Witney started the brighter of the two sides but Mary's defence held strong and were unlucky to concede a try early on. During the 2nd quarter Mary's worked their way into the Witney 22 metre, but with nerves and eagerness gave away a penalty. An organised defensive structure to the penalty clearance kick saw an outstanding counterattack from Lisa McCormick, who with strength and conviction battled her way over the try line to level the scores 5-5.

Mary's heaped the pressure on for the 3rd 20 minutes, threatening the Witney line and winning a penalty. Further pressure in the contact area saw Witney penalised again, and a quick tap and go from Scrum Half Sammy Knighton saw Mary's take the lead after finding a gap through the defence. Becky Durham successfully converted to put Mary's 12-5 up. During the final quarter, an effective catch from a restart and attack blind saw an impressive run from Katie Sully, running it from the half way line for Mary's third try. Now full of confidence in this last quarter of the game Mary's worked hard to try new moves. The frustration from some slight handling areas did not seem to knock Mary's wind, as Mary's fourth and final try was an all-round effort with positive contact work from the forwards and a well worked move from the backline seeing Cate Trevorah cross the line with the last play of the match to secure the 22-5 victory.

With 3 try opportunities also missed out on we have plenty to work on in training this week, and hopefully with a game under our belt against big opponents the nerves would have settled. A positive start to the season, with some promising performances from both new faces and old players.

Tries: Lisa McCormick, Sammy Knighton , Katie Sully , Cate Trevorah
Conversions: Becky Durham

First Cap: Kerry Diedericks , Hannah Rogers , Trisa Mahoney , Lisa Yip

Forward of the Match: Katie Sully
Back of the Match: Hannah Rogers
Tit of the Match: Fran Powell (for catching a kick off brilliantly but then tripping over her own feet as she began to run!!)

Written by Sammy Knighton & Lisa McCormick