A warm (too warm) day at Woodies began with playing Surrey whom we lost to in our final match of the season last year (post-Varsity, don’t judge…). Safe to say we were very happy to walk away with a 31-10 victory!
 
All in all, this was a very entertaining game, particularly because poor Lauren W. who we thought had scored a try instead missed the try zone and went into dead ball area (her mum was even there!).
 
Surrey are a very good team, which particularly showed in rucks and defence, where they turned over many of our balls and gave us quite a challenge. When they did get the ball, they rarely made it far beyond our 22, where our chop tackles improved as the game went on (special mention to cool fullbacks Chloe and Chiara).
 
When we gained the ball, we were fierce and strong in attack and quickly made many metres, which gave us our first try within ten minutes. Risky offloads were suddenly our way to get around the hazardous rucks. In most cases it worked, and where it didn’t, our pressure had Surrey knocking on their turnover balls (one of which were sneakily picked up by Claire and neatly scored).
 
The heat and the physicality of this game left us panting already in the first half (Turning a deaf ear to the ‘fitness’ being shouted in the far distance). But most of all, this was because we all put everything we had in to secure of first BUCS game became a victory. Special shout-out to Laura who scored the concluding try of the match - her first try after only playing rugby for a month! Obviously, this required kisses, hugs and some tough love in the liquid form of Dick of the Day.
 
We and our many bruises look forward to playing them again away next Wednesday…

Tries: Chiara (1), Lynn (1), Claire (1), Laura (1) Lauren W (1)
Conversion: Liz (3)
 
Forward of the Day: Ellie
Back of the Day: Chiara
Dick of the Day: Laura for scoring her first try!

Media sec is eating fondue in Switzerland, so veteran Celina is back in business!!!
Of course the first league game of the season had to be against GKT, reminiscent of Macadam Cup last year. A new year means a new team, so we were focused and composed during warm-up and reminded ourselves not to get cocky even though we’d trained hard and won our early season friendlies.

We started out on a high with excellent forwards phases from freshers and old girls alike (support training has definitely paid off!!), before releasing the backs in a try by the book; Diane scored safely under the posts and Liz converted. Flawless.
Opposition came back strong and pressured us in rucks and mauls, but failed to make a serious impact, as we pushed them to knock-ons and turnovers and quickly changed the game to our advantage. When this happened, we gained on the surprise momentum and back row, centres and wingers were quick to win massive amounts of ground and scoring tries within few minutes.

Freshers and old girls alike found themselves in new and ever-changing positions because of injuries and illness, so particularly scrummaging and clearing out the ruck was unstable – we gave away one too many penalties for foul play in the breakdown. That being said, ball carrying and pick-and-go worked really well and gave the back line space to unfold, which meant that all our tries came from solid team efforts (apart from Chiara’s sneaky pick and go).

Centres and wings had a great game, making metres, committing to tackles and scoring the majority of tries – particularly a cheeky Ana-Claire post-scrum move which went to super speedy Marie-Lys and almost made it all the way!

All in all, this was a great game, which gave us lots of opportunity to use our training, but also showed what we really need to work on.
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Thanks to all the supporters for coming out and for taking snazzy pictures.

Tries: Ana (2), Chiara (1), Hannah (1), Diane (1), Liz (1)
Conversions: Liz (2)
Oppositions Player of the Match: Daisy
Back of the Match: Chloe
Forward of the Match: Tara

On Sunday 11th October KCLWRFC took their game to Regents Park on a beautiful autumn day to play a friendly against one of our affable London rivals - LSE. Even though it was a friendly, by no means did we take it lightly as it was our first serious game of the season where our freshers and old girls integrated on the pitch competing against a team of a similar level. Having played LSE numerous times before KCLWRFC knew a win was achievable but not without putting up a fight, which is reflected in the final score of 15-12 to KCLWRFC!
 
Communication and support for one another on the pitch was vital as the team was new and people took on new positions. Despite this we started the game with strong defence, which paid off as we held them up on the try line for more than 15 minutes.
 
Throughout the 80 minutes, thanks to Chiaras and Daisys sneaky runs we managed to push ourselves up the pitch significantly gaining us a lot of ground. As well as this special mention to Fresher Chloe whose kicks were crucial in helping us clear out the pressure at our try line.
 
Even though our match against LSE was a friendly it was great to see that peoples commitment and training is paying off despite the current difficulties the team has been facing without a coach. Great job girls #KCLSTRONG
 
Tries: Ana Matorras (1), Helen Keohane (2)
Forward of the Match: Daisy O’Loughlin
Back of the Match: Louise Pech
Woman of the Match: Cathy Munyarari
Dick of the Day: Celina Digebjerg

On Saturday 3rd October the annual KCL Alumni Games took place at Honor Oak Park - a true highlight of the year where our old girls rejoin us for one match; however as the opposition! Both teams made their way down to HOP with high spirits as our new fresher’s were eager to play their first game and both teams were excited to catch up after a long summer apart.
 
Due to a lack of alumni, a few lucky freshers got to play on the opposing (and winning) team and were looked after by our alumni girls giving them a good first impression of the game. A special shout out goes to Nav for her strong tackles, Marie-Lys for a couple of great runs and Laura for a noticeable presence in every ruck.
 
With uncontested scrums the forwards saved plenty of energy for tackling and defense which came in handy against our sneaky alumni. Unfortunately, we could not keep up with the speedy Lilly and Alice as they stole the show breaking through our defense.
 
With that said, the final score was the closest the current girls have ever been to winning setting us up for a good start to the season. Even though the score was not in our favour, we gave the alumni girls a fight and should be proud of our efforts in closing the score gap!
 
Post match we all gathered around for the awarding of the Joanne Smith Award for Dedication, Selflessness and Adversity in memory of alumni Alice and Emily Smith’s mother Joanne who passed away last summer. The award was presented to current social sec Emma Hassard. Joanne was an immensely loved part of the team and her support and kindness will continue to be part of the KCLWRFC spirit.
 
Tries: Camille (1), Becky (1), Liz (1) and Diane (1)
Forward of the match: Kate Ferguson
Back of the match: Diane Iaciu
Woman of the Match: Liz Osborne and Nav Snotra
Dick of the Day: Chiara de Lucia
Joanne Smith Award for Dedication, Selflessness and Adversity: Emma Hassard