Women’s Premiership
Worcester 48 v 5 Thurrock T-Birds
ON Sunday the T-Birds reconvened their Premiership season after a big gap in the calendar caused by the Autumn Internationals
The prospect of facing unbeaten Worcester, the league leaders, who handed out a 70+ point thrashing on their visit to Oakfield in October, meant an uncomfortable journey up the M1.
In this difficult year, the philosophy of the T-Birds is “Small Victories” and incremental improvements, so the real target was to keep the score below 50 and not fold in the face of the expected onslaught.
The Ts started brightly and even though a star studded Worcester side applied huge pressure, Ts fought hard and hung on gamely.
With T’s defensive midfield putting in crashing tackles, it took 15 minutes for Worcester to manufacture an overlap and go round the outside for their first points.
Ts put in another strong 10 minutes of defence interspersed with a few attacks of their own, but once again turnover ball in contact let Worcester gain the upper hand and in a purple patch of less than 10 minutes Worcester were suddenly 4 trys up and out of sight at 24-0.
In the dying seconds of the half the referee brandished a red card to a Thurrock player after picking her out of a mêlée of six players and the game was well and truly over.
Down to 14 players, damage limitation was uppermost in the T’s minds for the second half, but with grim determination they got stuck in and played their best rugby for some time.
The 7 man scrum more than held its own, the lineout functioned well and the driving maul was almost unstoppable.
With Veronica Ely scoring a try which raised morale no end, and Worcester restricted to just 4 scores, the second half was a better result with 14 on the pitch than it had been in the first half with a full 15.
Final score was 48-5 with Worcester still top of the table.
With a break for the holiday season, next games are both at Oakfield.
Bristol on Sunday 13th January, then second in the table Richmond on Sunday 20th January, both teams visiting Oakfield for the first time, so please come on down and give your support to the T-Birds.
