Sunday saw the start of the new season for Bath Rugby Ladies, with what was due to be a very tough first encounter against the visitors Thurrock, who played in the Ladies Premiership last season.
With an exciting group of new players, Bath Ladies kicked off but straight away the visitors put the home side under some serious pressure.
The Bath forwards performed well at scrum and lineouts and were able to hold their own up front.
However, the experience and skill of the Thurrock backs soon shone through and put a couple of tries on the board early on. But the home team were determined to capitalise on their performance at scrum time and it was not long until the ball went wide to the right and some excellent support from flanker Katie Short allowed centre Kat Southwell to score in the corner.
This score spurred the home side on and some big tackles were made from forwards and backs alike as they battled against Thurrock’s powerful forwards and speedy backs.
The final play in the first half saw Bath prevent a try by holding up the visitors over the line to go into the break at 5-26.
The second half began with some good scramble defence from the home side who had to work hard to keep up with the power and pace of Thurrock. But the second half was dominated by the nifty feet of Thurrock’s number 10 along with the wingers who soon got the better of the Bath side. The final score was 5-77.
With some excellent periods of play particularly in the first half, and some fantastic scrums and lineouts, Bath Ladies will take everything they have learnt to their first away fixture of the season, as they play Saracens 2nd XV on Sunday 15th September.
The squad has welcomed many new players this season, of varying age and ability. Any ladies aged 18 and over are very welcome to come along to training to give rugby a go and meet the team. The Ladies train on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7pm at Lambridge Training Ground.
Here at NOW Bath, we’re very proud to be sponsoring the Bath Rugby Ladies team for the next two seasons. We wish them the best of luck with their upcoming games and we’ll be supporting them whenever we can. We hope you will be as well!
