LSE away friendly 47-0 win

We were ready and raring to play our first game against Goldsmiths, but unfortunately, they were unable to field a team so had to concede a walkover. We quickly sent out the search for a friendly as we wanted to capitalize on our motivation at the time. Luckily, we have a good relationship with the LSE rugby team and as they have a very large group of freshers, they were also eager to get a friendly in early. It was a good game of rugby, getting some great experience in for both teams.

Both KCL and LSE have been lucky to get a huge influx of beginner players to our teams, which means we’ve got lots of excitement and eagerness, but it also means games can get very messy; and this is exactly what happened with LSE! The first half was very touch and go, with LSE nervous to make big tackles and KCL unsure of how to best support. Both teams learnt quickly and we were both taken aback with how quickly beginners were picking up the game!

The forwards shone out in this game particularly, with some old girls who rarely score tries getting the opportunity here. Particularly our props shone out, as they’re not always known for being the big scorers, but here they were able to show experience and knowledge really is such an asset as they each scored corner tries in the first half. Unfortunately one of our starting props got kneed in the head in the process and actually ended up with fairly severe concussion (all better now… though she does now have to wear a quite brilliant electric blue scrum cap which has caused much delight across the team!)

The backs worked well, but there is a lot of progress to be made. For the backs, it is particularly important to work out how one another play as timing and speed has such a crucial role. The backs can’t wait to get stuck into learning moves and getting to know each other more so they can really utilize what they already have. We’ve already seen such promising beginnings with our brand-new-to-rugby 12 Ana proving to have a earth-stopping tackle, while our 13 Chiara (who has previously played scrum half for Southampton) shows the importance of experience as she was able to go for the gaps and power through many tackles by running a great line and smashing through!

It was amazing to see so much potential, and I think the big score shows that. With that win, KCLWRFC are pumped to play our first league game! Stay tuned!

Man of the Match - Amy Starmar
Dick of the Day - Sara Eskola (twice got the ball over the try line but neither was awarded a try “You gotta ground it girl!!”)

Tries

Katie Bambury - 1
Lynn Januszewski - 1
Helena Winstone - 1
Liz Crake - 2
Chiara De Lucia - 3
Sara Eskola (2 conversions + 1 penalty)