Of the many things we are famous for at the College, one is our proficiency in the great art of overtaking the student bar and Walkabout on Wednesday nights. But, as is tradition, we use the final month before the Varsity match against UCL to build up our fitness and strength.
This year we have decided to donate the money we would otherwise have spent on socials to Macmillan Cancer Support. Macmillan is a great charity, providing support for people who are living with cancer right now. And we want to encourage everyone to join us in supporting this amazing cause!

For this Wednesday's BUCS game, spring had finally come to Berrylands and moods were great during the warm-up. Of course, an annoying surprise had to sneak in as we found out that Brighton had only brought 12 players against our full squad. On top of this, they had requested an uncontested scrum. ARGH! 
As a result, first half was quite disrupted and patchy, as losing flankers and fullback made us a bit unsure of where to place ourselves on the pitch. A few opposition players did not play very nicely and they received many penalties for high tackles. Nonetheless, we scored three tries comfortably by powering through defense and pumping the legs as best as we could. It often took more than three defenders to take us down and even then, forwards had made their way to the try line and scored neatly - Amy and Lynn shoutout! When we used this technique and sucked in the defense, the back line had great space to unfold.
Here, Ana had gone to 10 in the absence of Becky and Claire, where she performed impressively. The back line was composed and speedy despite shortages and a foreign set-up (pun intended) and few balls were lost once it went into hands. In collaboration with a quick run from Philippa, two tries were scored this way.
Support play was great compared to previously, after a (muddy and wet) focus session last Monday. Off-loads and quick support for rucks worked better and we went further because of it. 
The last bit of the game was particularly enjoyable, as our prop captain Lynn went to 10 (previously only a joke, but no more!). Confidently, I can say that Becky and Claire have serious competition for the fly-half position.
Special shout-out to media sec and scrum-half for box-kicking the ball to touch (for the first time ever!!!) from our 22, which surely and most definitely took a great try opportunity away from Brighton.
Key improvements to take away from the game is to maintain the defense and trusting each other to make the tackle.

Photos by Becky.

Tries: Philippa (2), Lynn (1), Amy S. (1)
Conversions: Liz (2)
Opposition's PotM: Amy S.
Forward of the Match: Tara
Back of the Match: Ana
Dick of the Day: Lynn for finally realising her lifelong dream of playing fly-half.
KCLWRFC is proudly sponsored by KPMG.

Finally, our first BUCS game of 2015 after a couple of reschedules and frozen pitches. We have had trainings instead so we really felt the need to kickstart again with all we have been working on and to unleash our inner lionesses by some good old tackling.
The last time we went all the way to Brunel University we lost by quite a lot, so it was a thrill to return to central London with this big a victory, almost matching our 2014 Macadam win.

The first half started out with great confidence as we broke the game line continuously across the board and we scored within few minutes. Big breaks were made and maintained, and it often took more than 3 opposition players to take us down because of our momentum. We also had the chance to try what we had practiced in training as Brunel weren't very aggressive in ruck or defense, so ball possession was ours through most of the game.

Because we were constantly on the attacking side, our energy was conserved for the second half, where we tried more creative back line balls. Brunel did gain considerable ground on us, mostly because of a nippy fullback, who sneaked in a try at one point (though we mostly managed to chase her down - shoutout to winger Helena!). We did otherwise defend strongly at our own try line and managed to turn over a ball, run it down the pitch and score a solid try - that's how we like it! We maintained cool heads and reminded ourselves of not doing a 'Wales' by throwing it all away in the second half as seen in the Six Nations match last week ...

Brunel were not as composed as we had experienced in our game against them in November, which did mean that we could get away with some minor weaknesses. The key improvements to take from this game is clearing out and securing rucks, not drifting and trusting each other to do our jobs in defense and attacks - some gained ground was lost because we became rushed in our euphoria and didn't pass the ball out, which really is too bad!

At the end of the day, the list of try scorers is nicely spread out across the squad, which really shows that our performance was a shining beacon of team play and effort. Everyone truly had a great game and picking Players of the Match was extremely hard, as our Captain said afterwards.

Tries: Liz (2), Claire (1), Amy S. (1), Philippa (1), Helen (1), Helena (1), Hannah (1), Camille (1)
Conversions: Liz (4)
Oppo Player of the Match: Liz
Forward of the Match: Helen
Back of the Match: Cathy
Dicks of the Day: Claire for scoring her first try and Ana (who wasn't even playing) for running onto the pitch to congratulate her and jumped into her arms headfirst, receiving a bloody nose.
KCLWRFC is proudly sponsored by KPMG.

If you're wondering where the usual match reports are and whether we have gone underground - fear not! Our scheduled matches have unfortunately been postponed due to frozen pitches. In the mean time, enjoy this happy picture of us from our pirate social at Waterfront, courtesy of Amy C.: