VEIL DRAWN OVER THE LADIES’ SEASON OF UNDERACHIEVEMENT
THE SUE GARNETT LANCASIRE CUP FINAL FOR WOMEN
VALE of LUNE LADIES 50 – 5 ORMSKIRK LADIES
On the back of the programme for the Lancashire Finals Day at Preston Grasshoppers was an advertisement for ‘Butlers farmhouse cheeses’ ( they abjure the apostrophe apparently ) and their slogan is ‘Great Cheese Takes Time’. And so it seems to be with Ormskirk Ladies. In their squad they had five or six players who, had they pulled on Vale shirts, would have made the Vale team better. And had they had the organisation, fitness and self belief of their opponents they would have run their illustrious foe a good deal closer.
To take the last first ; self belief. Having got to the inaugural Ladies’ Lancashire Cup Final all the talk was of meeting the ‘Vale of Doom’, as though the Lancaster outfit were somehow from a higher plane to which they could never aspire. Which of course they can. Because after the pre-match cuddle they hurled themselves into an assault that kept Vale pinned in their own half for the first ten minutes of the game. Tiny crystals of self belief began to form and the neutrals in the crowd began to warm to the Ladies.
But, inevitably, organisation and fitness butted in. The Ormskirk scrum, which has been a shambles all season, shambled the Ladies back deep into their own half. Remarkably the Ladies won a scrum on their own 5m line but midget funstress Anna O’Malley at scrum half decided that this was just the moment to dummy a pass to the full back before rolling it along the floor to the fly half. Vale went 5 – 0 up. They soon stretched it to 10 – 0 when the backs mistook a penalty for a chance to have a chat. Oh sorry ! That should have been organisation, fitness and concentration.
But guts the Ladies had in abundance. In defence they kept their line and made Vale earn every inch. And in attack they had potent threats all over the pitch. They should have scored when skipper Emma Gander made the room to put wing ‘Shirley’ Rylance in for a simple run in, but, at the moment of passing, mistook Shirley’s feet for her hands.
To huge applause from the crowd the Ladies deservedly pulled a try back when Girl of the Game and all round Goddess, fly half Jenny Leitch, made a break from half way, linked with O’Malley ( making up for being Miss Bumble earlier ) who steered winger Sammy Hunter over the line to ground the ball just well enough for the referee to award a try.
But Vale had their own threats. Abrasive and battle hardened fly half Julie Clegg kept her line pounding away at the Ladies. They strained every sinew to resist but, out wide, Vale had a veritable Valkyrie, a Joan Hunter Dunn to wet Betjeman’s pants, who, when she was given the room, was to wreck the Ladies’ dreams of making a game of it. The blonde bombshell put Vale up 15 – 5 before half time and in the second half ran Ormskirk ragged.
The second half became a procession of Vale tries ( generally booed by the neutrals ) as the Ladies’ fitness dribbled into pools of sweat around their feet. Gasps of alarm went up when Rylance, the Ladies’ Pre–Raphaelite beauty, was discarded like an empty crisp packet by the Vale No 8. For long moments she lay there like Millais’ drowned Ophelia before waking and walking to join the wrong team and inevitable substitution. As a grizzled old chap watching said, ‘Whad’ya expect ? That lass were five stone ‘eavier an’ ‘ad three more chins !’
So back to the cheese. Could this Ladies side be as good as Vale ? Yes … given time. But you can’t just stick them in a cupboard to mature like cheese … or, more appropriate for this lot … lay them down in a cellar in vats of alcohol. It will take application. But that application won’t come until they truly believe in themselves.
The Cup Final was a great, great performance given their limitations. But Ladies, believe this, those limitations are entirely of your own making.
