FLEETWOOD WRUFC 17 – 12 ORMSKIRK LADIES
Tom and Jerry, Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, Adolf Hitler and the Jews – some people just can’t seem to hit it off. And so it is with Ormskirk Ladies and Fleetwood. Ever since Fleetwood played their first game against the Ladies there has been a certain edge to their contests. So returning to Fleetwood a week after dumping them out of the Lancashire Cup the Ladies still burned with an urgent need to put them in their place.
These meetings can occasionally get a bit earnest ( wildcats fighting in a sack spring to mind ) but once the referee sorted out some overenthusiastic tap dancing the game settled down into a compelling match between two teams with widely contrasting styles. That is, between one team who had the ball and one team who didn’t.
In these columns your correspondent has been known to castigate teams who favour the ‘brain dead battering’ form of the game. Leeds Leos tried it at Green Lane, came up short and were scorned. Fleetwood, however, deserve our grudging admiration for laying the dead hand of pragmatic English rugby on this game. Logic demanded a nine girl game and, unlike Leos, their execution of it was pretty well perfect.
In the first half Fleetwood enjoyed masses of possession … the Ladies struggled to keep their own ball in the scrums and were wiped out in the lineouts … and had a howling gale at their backs. And yet they turned around 5 – 7 down.
The powerful Fleetwood pack and the wind made the Fleetwood half a happy sanctuary for hundreds of gulls for most of the first half. At the other end Fleetwood hammered away and the Ladies resisted. Flankers Kayleigh ‘Special K’ McDonnell, Girl of the Game Charlotte ‘Mousse’ Doyle and full back Sammy Hunter were outstanding in defence. Eventually Fleetwood turned over an Ormskirk scrum (sadly not for the last time ) and, as the Ladies’ backs scrambled up to defend, took a 5 – 0 lead.
While Fleetwood had the lion’s share of the ball the Ladies’ backs fretted and picked around for scraps like starving vultures. Eventually scrawny scrum half Anna O’Malley grubbed up a juicy bit of ball in the form of a quick tap penalty and fed wing Clare ‘Shirley’ Rylance. It was a classic Ladies’ try. Rylance burst into the Fleetwood 22, offloaded out of the tackle to fly half Jenny ‘Jugs’ Leitch who, in one movement, put the ball back into the hands of O’Malley to score.
Well, just be Fleetwood for a second and do the maths … you’re facing a strong wind, their backs are better than yours, but you’re stuffing them in the lineouts, scrums, rucks and mauls so … it’s obvious isn’t it ? … LET’S PLAY NINE GIRL
RUGBY !!!
Of course, Fleetwood weren’t perfect. As the Ladies’ arch enemies and therefore, obviously, vicious, cheating incompetents who can only win games with the help of bent referees, brutality and the divine Julia ( their accomplished scrum half ) they were bound to make mistakes. But not before a dart from Julia had set up a ruck for the forwards to power over and give them a 12 – 7 lead.
But mistakes there were and eventually some ball fell into the hands of sub and newby Helen Williams. As a hockey player, rugby must seem astonishingly simple to Williams. You carry a big, soft ball in two hands and then run past people until you can put it over a line 50m wide. So much easier than catching a cricket ball on a stick and then trying to put it into a tiny, tiny net. Williams ran with the ignorance of the innocent until someone flattened her. But she’d done the damage. Fleetwood’s hard working cover was stripped and O’Malley put the ball into Rylance’s hands to sprint in from 40m out. 12 – 12.
Other opportunities came the Ladies’ way but poor handling and worse decision making blunted the threat. Centre Kate ‘Triple L’ Traynor, usually the Handmastergeneral, found it necessary to stop running each time she passed the ball … if this was an example of a woman multi-tasking it’s a bloody good job her breathing is autonomic. And not having won a lineout all game, the Ladies continued to belt the ball into touch rather than kicking it long. Of course, every time the ball fell into Fleetwood’s hands the meatgrinder rolled forward remorselessly.
It should have been dull, but maddeningly for us Ladies’ supporters, it was a gripping spectacle as the Ladies fought to hold back the Fleetwood pack. But in the end they couldn’t. Fleetwood went 17 – 12 up and secured a deserved win by denying the Ladies any glimpse of the ball for the last 10 minutes of the game.
It was a victory for a solid eight, a sometimes desperate back line and Fleetwood’s dullard of a coach. And ain’t that just the joy of rugby union ? Sometimes it’s best to forget the rocket science and just get on with the job.
