This was the toughest test so far for the Epping women

Epping Women v Battersea Ironsides

This game against the visitors from Battersea kicked off in sunny weather with perfect pitch conditions.

Epping kicked off and the visitors gathered and ran the ball straight back.
Immediately it was apparent they were here to play, with big ball carriers making inroads into the Epping defensive line.
Although they were being gradually pushed back, the Epping line didn’t break apart, and eventually, after some 10 minutes of continuous defence, the ball was knocked on and Epping set up for the scrum.

With Original Hurley taking some time to get her eyelashes sorted before coming on, Jess, BJ & Nina lined up against their opposite numbers.
With new Pack Leader Alexa at No8 directing things, the scrum surged forward for Donna to collect clean ball and spin it out to Ella at Fly Half.
Swiftly down the line to Emma via Mel (playing her first game back since injury), and Millie took the ball at pace to break the line of flailing tacklers and sprint away to cross the line in the corner.
With none of the Battersea girls willing to stop her once she’d crossed the line, she managed to sprint around to dot down under the posts.
She then converted her own try.
Epping 7-0

More to-ing and fro-ing in the centre of the park with both teams trying their best to break through without any success.
NotChloe was back to her best, smashing anything in front of her, and Anna hit people as if she’d been doing it for years instead of the mere 3 games she’s played.
The wall of noise defence from Epping put Battersea under pressure and forced knock on’s a couple of times, and high tackles from the visitors gave the Thornwood girls some momentum, but to their credit, Battersea were up for the challenge.
Still Epping struggled to break through cleanly, and after a high tackle from Epping, Battersea went for touch.
From the resulting lineout, they spun the ball across the line and out to the right winger who managed to avoid a last ditch tackle from Millie to just about dot down in the far corner
Conversion unsuccessful- 7-5

From the kickoff, Battersea regathered and took the ball back into contact, but the ball carrier took a knock to the face on the floor resulting in a bloody and broken nose, so with only 30 seconds remaining, the referee called halftime

The teams switched ends for the second half and the hard carries began again.
Some changes were made, with Larry coming on in the Forwards and new hooker Lauren
Epping hit hardest in the tackles.
Shamma stopped 2 certain tries with massive momentum stopping hits, Emma harried, hit, got up and chased again.
All the while the defensive line was solid, with BJ finding the voice she’d lost on Fridays training, Nina and Hurley sprinting out of the line to hit hard and knocking back ball carriers.
Alexa and Lauza policed the breakdowns, with Rotty being her usual prowling ‘unleashed rocket’ self.

However Battersea doggedly kept at it and were rewarded with a second try out wide to make the score 7-10

This was the first time the Ladies had been behind this season, and they clearly weren’t happy about it.
Captain Donna barked more orders, Ella started switching up moves in the backs and new addition Ella David took flat passes and twice nearly broke the line.
Battersea kept making high tackles and eventually a Yellow card was shown to the visitors winger.
More and more pressure was piled on to Battersea and eventually the ball found its way out to the wing and Shamma took it at pace from Ella D and forced her way over the line with 3 tacklers hanging off her
Wide conversion missed, so the score remained at 12-10

Now the Thornwood girls relaxed their shoulders and began to do what they’ve done all season so far.
They did the basics, secured loose ball, set the rucks, and went through their moves and gradually worked their way down the park to give it to a flying Ella D to punch a hole through the creaking defence and go over for her first try
Millie converted the try to bring the score to
19-10.

With that, the ref blew for full time and the celebrations began.

This was the toughest test so far for the Epping Ladies, against a newly promoted Battersea team who clearly came to play.

Defence & heart kept the girls in this game, during a tough first half and eventually that won through to enable them to pull away.
Best Forward went to Larry
Best Back went to Shamma

Epping Ladies now sit top of the league (???) and have 2 weeks break, before they head over to local rivals Harlow

Worth the short drive to witness a great team in the making.

MVDT