Junior Girls Rugby Update at Blaydon RFC
The U13s Squad were playing in a festival away at Bishop Auckland and they teamed up with Barnard Castle to make up a team of ten. This was their first game of rugby and judging by Jenna Dale’s summary they were fantastic!! The team played brilliantly. They passed the ball, tackled well and the rucks were spot on. All the girls played incredible and should be very proud of what they have achieved today, loads of positives to take into the season ahead.
THE U13s only have a squad of 8 players at present so if you know any girls in school years 7 and 8, who may be keen to give rugby a go please get in touch.
On Sunday the club hosted an U15 Girls Rugby Festival with 126 players taking part, with teams from Ryton, Blaydon and combined teams made up of Billingham/DMP, Horden/Hartlepool Rovers, Stockton/Barnard Castle and Houghton/Gateshead. A summary from Damien Ameer Beg, who has been fundamental in bringing the girls team together is detailed below.
First thing I want to say is WOW WOW WOW. The girls were absolutely amazing, the jump from under 13s to under 15s is huge, but our girls showed how hard work and fitness paid off.
I’m not going to talk scores as I’m not concerned about them, yesterday was about the making of a team, a team that’s only been together roughly 6/7 months (actual playing time). The girls attitude, aggressive play and effort was fantastic, they all put in a 100%, which showed on the pitch. The runs were strong determined and direct, the handling to keep the ball alive was really pleasing to see, the scrums held strong and the jumping at the line out was some of the best on show, but it was the tackling that stood out. Time and time again both myself and Paul mentioned to the girls that we thought their defending with everything they had was outstanding. Yes there’s plenty to work on but their is also plenty to work with.
We tried to exploit teams weaknesses with ball in hand against the opponent by creating go forward ball, either through pick and go or good footwork. We just need to work on our rucking as it was susceptible to an attack through the middle in numbers.
I thought Georgia D did a great job as captain, her team talks and motivational input was first class. Plenty of the girls played on despite carrying injuries, which is again detriment to their attitude and desire.
Lastly I would like to thank Chris Millican, Paul Foster, Paul Vinnicombe, Tim Murphy and of course Sharon Reed for all their help on the day, a great team effort, thank you.
