It was a frosty start for a friendly against Guildford/Camberley away. This is a team we always enjoy playing due to their good sportsmanship and friendly girls.
Dorking started strongly with a straight run by Millie, with Darcey in support, to start the scoring. Captain Amalie expertly slotted over the conversion. 0-7. Dorking received from the restart and rampaged forwards with Chloe, into some strong defence, unfortunately resulting a Dorking player being the recipient of a stray elbow which fortunately earned us a penalty. With Amelie writing to Santa for her own lucky tee borrowed from the oppo, she slotted it over for 0-10.
In the ensuing play, Dorking were slow to the rucks and were punished with a turnover. Lapses in defence then saw Guildford score twice in quick succession. 10-10.
A quarter time pep talk, reinforcing the importance of rucking saw Taylor and Chloe plough to the breakdowns, with Scarlett and Darcey arriving behind, Scarlett shipping the ball out quickly and out to the back for Millie to score, 10-15 with Sienna narrowly missing the conversion but the coaches proud she had stepped up to try under pressure. Our scrums worked well with Flo expertly hooking it back, Taylor and Scarlett D holding firm and Scarlet C commanding her backs. Livvy caught from the offload and weaved though several players taking a big hit but bounced back up to get back on side.
Half time
Guildford came out the traps fast to zoom through a try 15-15. Now normally this would be curtains, with Issy yelling various commands in increasing volume, but once again, much to the surprise of all, the Dorking team showed level heads and an extraordinary level of tenacity. Alais took over at scrum half feeding it to front row Chloe, Scarlett and Olivia holding firm. Dorking took command, secured their rucks, with Poppy, Amelie and Taylor being quick to get there turning the ball over, Abi and Annabel guarded the wing showing increasing confidence to tackle and run in support, while Sophie pushed through hard past a significant number of players to gain ground along the backs and out to Millie via a cheeky handoff. Amalie converts and it’s 15-22. An alleged infringement caused us to lose possession and after a scrum to Guildford, and despite a battle by Amelie to hold the ball up, they crashed over to score and convert 22-22.
We battled on with Siena looking dangerous and on to score before a good tackle from Guildford forced us to ground, then back along the line, some great hands by Sevi, and Scarlett looked to have put it down, only for it to be judged short and Guildford turned over the ball only for us to push them into touch. The lineout worked and we shipped it along the line, with Sevi showing her linespeed. This time Siena wasn’t going to be caught and she went over. Darcey offered to take the conversion, which went wide. 22-29.
Like the proverbial boomerang Dorking went straight back at them from the off, rucks worked, offloads worked, Immy B ran straight, popping the offload and Darcey zoomed through. Conversion was missed narrowly by Amalie who decided to try from the far wing just for the sheer hell of it such was our confidence 22-34.
At some point Sevi did an excellent interception. With the cold setting in and our subs bench on the pitch for the oppo, the last points were taken by Guildford despite Orla’s best efforts to hold them up in her developing full back position, in which she did us proud with the help of Scarlett. Converted so final score 29 - 34 FT. A great day of rugby. It wasn’t our prettiest win, we can play better with more organisation, but it did the job. Onwards to next week! 2 wins from 2.
As usual the match report has been compiled from memory, all information contained, bar the scorers and the actual score may well be the product of fiction, apologies to all….
POTM selected by coaches: -
Forwards POTM - Flo
Backs POTM - Millie
POTM selected by the opposition - Livvy and Flo
