Sunday 4th November 2007
Ormskirk Ladies RUFC 10
Fleetwood WRUFC 10
Tries: A O’Malley, J Leitch
World rugby was rocked to its foundations on Sunday as Ormskirk Ladies achieved what many had thought was impossible – they won a line out. Grown men wept as lock Catherine “Satan” Nixon rose majestically into the air to claim a throw from hooker Lesley Kenny. Kenny, who normally judges a throw a success if it lands in the same county, swooned in astonishment. Referee Colin Burrell choked on his whistle and went to video for confirmation. Scrum half Anna O’Malley, awed by this novel form of possession, took the ball as one might take a newborn babe and carefully transferred it to the backs … who then chucked it away.
As they did every other bit of ball that the forwards managed to chisel away from the parsimonious Fleetwood outfit.
And that was the story of the game. In the first half the Ladies dropped the ball in their own half and suffered the inevitable Fleetwood pressure; in the second half they dropped the ball in the Fleetwood half and managed some degree of parity.
The Ladies had started gloriously. Fleetwood kicked off, elected to defend their left flank with a hooker, a prop and a diminutive winger and found the Ladies’ three most potent backs running at them. Fly half Jenny Leitch moved the ball to centre Emma Gander who, for the only time in the game, managed to get the ball into the hands of someone in a green shirt. In 15 seconds max … probably a World Rugby Union record … O’Malley trundled in for a try.
So that should’ve been that. Give the ball to the backs. Backs score tries. Fleetwood bugger off home with a fifty point deficit.
No. What actually happened was that Fleetwood got up into the faces of the Ormskirk backs and forced any number of thrilling spills. Mostly from skipper Gander. In defence she claimed her pre-match curry stirring for the post match meal had weakened her wrists. Whatever the reasons, the stark fact was that you’d have seen better handling from a convicted Saudi Arabian shoplifter.
If the Ladies weren’t getting anywhere … at least not with the ball … Fleetwood were. Their sustained pressure brought them two unconverted tries and a
10-5 lead at half time.
Unable to stitch together anything remotely like a move, the Ladies had to find their rugby pleasures elsewhere. Luckily with O’Malley back at 9 everybody got to have a go at scrum half. Nature blessed O’Malley with the heart of a lion but the stature and brains of a gnat. As first to every breakdown she sees it as her role to get stuck uselessly in the middle of a maul or at the bottom of a ruck. Truly, people who lay linoleum for a living spend less time on the floor than O’Malley. Lock Charlotte ‘Moose’ Doyle tried to point out the error of O’Malley’s ways by attempting to remove her head with a knee, but we fear it will take more than a simple decapitation for O’Malley ever to see sense.
With the backs misfiring the Ladies had to look for their heroines elsewhere. Girl of the Game Nixon continued to boss the line out and hooker Kenny was having her game of the millennium. Normally the closest Kenny can get to covering every blade of grass is by laying on it, but on Sunday she was gambolling around like a spring lamb. Since Kenny only trains on days with an X in them, we can only feel relief that drug tests are rare at the Ladies’ humble level.
Fly half Leitch, despairing of finding any help outside her, got the scores back to 10-10 with a scything run from 20m out. It looked convertible but Leitch was, uncharacteristically, kicking like a man in flippers and the Ladies had to settle for the draw.
Report by Sam Botfield
Next game : Northwich (A) Sunday 11th November
Next home game: Heaton Moor Sunday 25th November (k.o. 2pm)
RFUW NC North 1
Team P W D L F A Diff B Pts Pts Adjust
Darlington Ladies 3 3 0 0 84 12 72 1 13 0
Heaton Moor 4 2 1 1 83 50 33 2 12 0
Ormskirk RUFC Ladies 4 2 1 1 69 46 23 0 10 0
Leos Ladies II 4 2 0 2 57 68 -11 1 9 0
Fleetwood Ladies 4 1 1 2 37 59 -22 2 8 0
Northwich RFC Ladies XV 5 2 0 3 40 90 -50 0 8 0
Blaydon Ladies II 4 0 1 3 25 70 -45 0 2 0
Last Updated: Nov 4 2007 5:30PM
