Selby Ladies away to Sheffield

Selby Women 1st XV played their first game of the season losing 51 ~ 10 to a very well organised Sheffield Ladies Development side.

Most of the damage was done in the first twenty minutes as Sheffield blitzed the visitors with four tries within the first twenty minutes, the first after only two minutes of play as the Pens simply could not cope with the power from the Sheffield forwards, slick halfbacks and the sheer pace of the Sheffield wide players.

Playing four twenty minute sets The Pens were able to regroup during the first break in play and were a very much stronger unit in the second quarter. This time the Selby defence was much better with Em Owen and Megan Birch combining to make a try saving tackle on the Selby try line. From that the Pens seemed to grow in confidence and began taking the game to Sheffield with some strong running from the Selby midfield of Ellie Green and Honor Ratcliffe, but the Sheffield press defence proved very efficient and denied Selby any real scoring opportunities. On the occasions the Pens did get the ball out wide to speedster Em Owen they looked dangerous. Owen, with her pace and quick feet looked the most likely to open the Pen’s, account as she ran at the Sheffield wide players, but despite getting close to the try line on a number of occasions she simply could not break through the Sheffield tackles. However despite the Selby effort it was Sheffield who scored the only try of the second quarter, adding the conversion to make it 27- 0 at half time.

Sheffield scored two quick tries after the break as their very talented half-backs began to run the show. Indeed they may well have scored many more in this quarter if not for the courageous defensive shifts from the Selby back row with Selby Number 8 Laura Lee-Thomas putting an incredible shift for her team. On the fifty minute mark Selby were awarded a scrum just outside the Sheffield 22m line. A tidy pass from Selby scrum half Kate Manton caught the Sheffield halfbacks napping allowing Selby flyhalf Megan Birch burst through the Sheffield defence to score the Pen’s first try of the season. A further converted try from Sheffield late in this quarter brought the score to 44 -5.

With both sets of forwards now tiring the final quarter of the game was played out between the two sets of backs. Once again it was Selby’s Em Owen who came close to scoring after some great running out of the midfield by Ellie Green. Once again however the sucker punches were delivered by Sheffield, this time from their substitutes who simply had too much pace against Selby at this stage in the game. The final act of the game however belonged to Selby who scored their second try in the corner after some great handling from the Selby backs to take the final score to 51 -10.

This was very much a learning experience for the Ladies against a very strong Sheffield Development side which included some of their more experienced players in addition to their new recruits. The game was played in great spirit and whilst it is fair to say that Selby have a number of areas to work upon before the next game, Coach Ben Lunt will have been pleased with some of what he saw.