Welwyn
The Epping Ladies went to Welwyn knowing this would probably be their toughest test of the season, and so it proved.
Welwyn came out of the blocks hard and fast and Epping were on the ropes immediately.

After 3 tries from Welwyn, the girls finally started believing they could have an effect on this game.

The ball was turned over in our 22, it was shovelled out unceremoniously to Becks who managed to hold onto the low ball, pivot and pop to Ella.
She sprinted down the left wing, chased by 2 then 3 Welwyn girls, the last of which managed to scrag her just before the line.
Support was arriving though, in the form of Donna, who scooped it up, but couldn’t keep her feet, just managed to offload to Millie, who then dived over the line……. Only to realise it was the 5m line, not the try line!!
(Maybe the Dick of the Day socks may make an appearance again)???
The ball was knocked on in the ensuing scramble and the opportunity went begging.

From the scrum, Welwyn managed to get the ball up the park, lose possession, regain it, lose it again and then gather a kick from the Thornwood girls to then dot it over in the corner (22-0)
Epping’s restart didn’t go 10 and from the resulting scrum, the ball was shipped all the way along the Welwyn line, but the Thornwood girls defensive tackles were continuous and hard.
In particular Millie & Rottweiler hit hard and forced mistakes.

Some strong mauling from a lineout and the Epping girls won the turnover just outside our 22, but couldn’t quite clear the lines, and a knock on saw Welwyn’s resulting scrum win the ball and put it wide to the left wing.
The hard running Welwyn ball carriers saw Epping falling off tackles and the home team went over to score in the corner 27-0

The ref blew for Half time and the girls gratefully went for their water bottles

The second half started the same way and Welwyn scored first in the corner 32-0
Proving how much it meant to her, Ella threw herself at the try scorer as she went over and injured herself trying to stop the try being scored, resulting in er being off for the rest of the game.

There was some hard graft all the way up the pitch resulting in an Epping penalty in front of posts.
Rather than kick for the lineout, the girls chose to tap and go, giving it to Hurley who barrelled through 3 defenders, shouting “Mind my new eyelashes!! popped it to Rosie Wheelhouse who punched her way over the line for the girls only score of the game.

Welwyn scored a couple more, and then with 10 minutes to go, one of their players was injured badly enough to stop the game whilst she was attended to.
10 minutes later, it was decided to finish the game early so a final score of 44-5 was recorded.

A deserved win for Welwyn today, with a much different looking team than the one that ran out against Harlow a couple of weeks ago.

A lesson learned for our girls today.
“Must be switched on from the start” perhaps?

No-one can question the bravery of the girls in this team, against a huge Welwyn squad, but tackle technique, line speed and support were their undoing today.

Harlow at home next week.
Hopefully a return to the kind of form we’ve come to expect from this squad.

With a 2 course ‘Sunday Roast’ Club Lunch planned, it will be a good club day to come along and support

Contact Paul Donnelly if you fancy filling up on hearty grub before the game !

MVDT