News
REPORT | Blues Women win the league
Bedford Blues Women are the champions of NC2 Midlands (South) after making it nine victories on the spin with a gritty a 21-7 victory over St Neots Ladies at Goldington Road.
The win, coupled alongside defeats for Harpenden and Stockwood Park, mean it's job done in terms of the title but some challenges still to face in terms of reaching immortality.
In truth, they were dragged into a game that they just shouldn’t have been – but that will come with experience as the team grows and are involved in more heat of the battle scenarios. You forget sometimes that a handful of the players are yet to make double figure appearances, and it was that lack of nous that could have cost them.
This is a fixture that is starting to become somewhat of a grudge match, and it needn’t be because the games that have come before have been really good spectacles between two sides that majoritively just want to play rugby.
The positive to come from it is that Blues have done the hat-trick over St Neots, keeping their perfect record this season, and have successfully overturned a 2-0 deficit in the series to now lead 3-2.
Feels like we’ve written this 100 times over, but the game again showed just how critical it is to have a fly-half capable of changing the game on a sixpence. It may not have been her best game with ball in hand, but nine huge points – including a monster of a penalty from 25m – plus clearance kicks at critical junctures from Lucy Middleton were highly important.
You could tell from quite early into proceedings that this was going to be a feisty encounter and Blues fell for it hook, line and sinker at times. When they clicked, they again looked like world beaters, but they were far too easily wound up and suffered some consequences.
It’s not very often that Eddie Rennell and Peter Frost’s side concede more penalties than opponents and they’ll need to tidy up a lot in two weeks when the contingent from Gloucestershire head down for a crucial Round of 16 Cup clash.
Twickenham is just three knockout fixtures away and you’d hate for them to fall short by naively going away from everything they work on in training. When they’re good, they’re really good and they’ll need to go back to that against a side no-one knows anything about.
But again, the important thing is to remember that they’ve ultimately won the game. Bex Wright has been unreal at the breakdown all season and that proved so crucial as possession traded hands countless times and they needed someone to fight for everything. Bex did that in abundance.
The introduction of some more of the experienced players as the game drew to a close worked wonders and they ground it out well in the end.
Alivia Usher-Harris and Heather Cousins will take the plaudits for their try heroics.
Title secured. Now to go unbeaten and get to Twickenham....
Bedford Blues Women Starting XV:
15. Emma Graham, 14. Sophie Singleton-Sells, 13. Alyce Trude, 12. Emma Hunter, 11. Amy Winter, 10. Lucy Middleton (C), 9. Esme Fish; 1. Emry Bond, 2. Steph-Sarah McPhillips, 3. Millie Rennell, 4. Catherine Chambers, 5. Kelly Hodgson, 6. Alivia Usher-Harris, 7. Heather Cousins, 8. Bex Wright
Bedford Blues Women Replacements:
Lauren Mason, Hanah Donovan, Elena Famiglietti, Emily McBarron, Abi Wilkin, Gemma Cook, Naomi Stockham
