Sun 12 Dec 2021
North Dorset Women vs Poole Women
In the second game of the season, North Dorset Women had Six debutants, Anna Marsh, Leona Hughes, Bryonie Johnson, Darryl Norris, Letby Burden, Miranda Paxton, and Claire Murray.
The game started with a Poole charging all over ND but some solid defence for the whole of the 15 minutes. North responded with the forwards carrying hard. Some lovely interchanging play between Katie Porter and Mel Mitchell led a counter-attack 50 meters up the park for Louisa Neale, aka "BullDozer", to run straight through the Poole defence and over the line for a try, which was not converted.
After the first quarter, the ND women were in the mood for a tough match. After facing a few very solid Poole scrums and some big hits from the centre partnership of Emily Kendall and Kayleigh Budge, one of the hits resulted in a turnover, and quick thinking led to the ball ending up in the hands of Amber "Speedy Gonzales" Corbett. She ran straight down the blindside, length of the pitch score. The game was restarted by Poole, kicking the ball straight to the ND backs, who ran riot, and Emily Kendall broke through to score under the posts then successfully converted by fly-half Amber Corbett.
Half time made a few changes bought on Letby Burden for her first game in 8 years and Claire Murray for her first game. The crowd was really behind the women today and cheering them on. However, Poole came out the blocks hard again for the second half. First, 25 minutes Poole scored two tries from a couple of missed tackles and fantastic work from Poole's fly-half and wingers. Then, in the last 10 minutes, there were a few tired bodies out there, and with the night drawing in north new they had a chance to settle the match. Some huge hits from Darryl Norris, Kate Collins and Leona Hughes lead to two late tries for ND. The first was A great move from the lineout saw Kaitlyn Phillips throw the ball to BullDozer at the front of the lineout, and she marched in from 15 metres out. The second we saw a hobbling Kendall go down the blindside again after some good interplay from Collins, Corbett and Budge.
The game ended
27-10 to NDRFC Women
Back of the match - Darryl Norris
Forward of the match - Mel Mitchell
