National News History 2007/8

North Wales U14s V East Wales U14s

The North Wales U14 squad travelled to Llanidloes with a much depleted squad, with only 10 girls available to play. Ceri Noble and Catrin Evans from Nant Conwy took part in their first game representing North Wales and soon justified their selection with some impressive play.

The forwards were organised by Captain Amelia Stubbs (Colwyn Bay) and the spectators were rewarded with some good ball.

The backs, organised by Alaw Hughes (Caernarfon) worked particularly hard to defend and Cain Jones (Pwllheli), Iona and Elin Evans (Nant Conwy) in attack broke through a fairly solid East Wales defence. Kaya Harding (Colwyn Bay) returning to her role of scrum half had a good game despite East Wales mounting an effective blitz defence.

Considering the North Wales girls have had their training seriously disrupted and had very little preparation they all showed the true North Wales spirit and never gave up until the final whistle.

North Wales U17s V East Wales U17s

The weather was as usual wet and chilly at Llanidloes when the North Wales girls met with East Wales yet again.

The North Wales girls struggled to find a full team.  This was due to a number of reasons including injury and exam timetables.  They struggled to find good form today. This was because they also had very little practice as the pitches were flooded out in the North. Unfortunately there are no satisfactory indoor facilities in the North. This showed in their performance against the East Wales girls who in contrast showed they had made great improvements since the two teams met last year.

The depleted numbers meant that the North Wales girls were missing some of their stalwarts and also meant that the remaining girls were playing out of position.  The East Wales coach and girls were generous in lending some of their girls to make up the numbers. 

The North Wales girls began with difficulty in finding any fluency and made a series of unforced mistakes with their handling errors.  The makeshift forwards struggled against the well coordinated pack of the East Wales girls.  However, though they lost ground in the initial scrums they got their confidence back and managed to hold their own in the scrums towards the latter periods of play and even managed to disrupt the East Wales scrums a few times, even winning against the head.  In particular Captain Sian Williams (Caernarfon) played her customary good game at 8 leading the forwards and having an excellent game in cover defence.  Glain Gruffydd (Caernarfon) at 2 and the second row of Sarah Johnston (Colwyn Bay) and Kumari Tilakawardane (Colwyn Bay) strived and overcame the weight and skill advantage of the East Wales girls in the second half of the game.  Abi Beards (Colwyn Bay) showed her adaptability on the rugby field and filled in the absent 6 berth well. She also played part of the game at her favoured scrum half position showing the utility player she has become to North Wales’ rugby. Joely Benton (Colwyn Bay) had a very good game at 6 with some crunching tackles that stopped a few East Wales moves.

However the valiant effort was lost as the backs did not capitalise on these.  This was partly due to the handling errors and lack of confidence presumably due to the lack of experience of playing as a team for a while but much of the difficulties were due to the fact that the East Wales girls were playing a very confident and slick game from the outset.  Emma Beaumont (Colwyn Bay) had a good game, showing her fierceness in tackling and talent at anticipation in defence stemming the flow of moves from the East.  Yasmin Leung (Caernarfon) had a quiet but effective game dropping down from the usual stand off position to full back to fill in the vacancy due to absenteeism.  Elin Royle (Nant Conwy) again worked hard and effectively both in attack and defence while Hayley Webber (Caernarfon) made some useful forays into the opposition half with her gift of speed.  Anna Parkin (Colwyn Bay) played effectively filling in at scrum half, inside centre and at 7, again becoming another utility player for the team.

The North Wales girls had a few new faces to fill the spaces left by absenteeism. Jane Owen and Joely Benton from Colwyn Bay and Sian Williams from Nant made their debut appearances for the North Wales girls. Joely Benton had a particular good start to her North Wales career and Jane Owen and Sian Williams overcame their initial nerves to settle down and play some good rugby. 

The zeal and commitment of the North Wales Girls is exemplified by the manner in which all of them unflinchingly took to the field despite the lack of preparation and practice, some out of their comfort zones and familiar positions and others stepping in at short notice to fill the voids to keep their fixture commitments.  Bravo!

Following the National Trial at Llandovery RFC Mermaid Rebecca Gray has been selected to join Wales Women Under 20 squad. Congratulations from all the coaching staff.