Top teamwork shines through but ladies still pipped at post
FOLLOWING a scintillating Saturday of rugby completed with a Six Nations win for Wales and the England Ladies completing their own grand slam with an emphatic win over Scotland ladies, expectations were high for an afternoon of entertaining rugby as Ormskirk Ladies welcomed visitors from Winnington Park for the final match of the league season.
The fixture saw the clash of two sides which have experienced mixed fortunes this season with Winnington riding high and Ormskirk Ladies languishing in the lower reaches despite a number of outstanding performances against very good sides.
Ormskirk, however, are finishing the season on a high and with a successful season of team building completed the future is beginning to look very positive.
For Ormskirk Ladies the match got off to the worst possible start, conceding two well worked tries and a conversion within the first five minutes to go 12-0 behind and with virtually the whole match still to run, matters did seem to be a little bleak.
Things picked up though as the successful team building began to bear fruit and rather than heads sinking, heads came up and chests were proudly pushed out as the Greens took the game to their very well organised opponents with wave after wave of attacks just falling short.
Winnington too came out with all guns firing and were determined to add to the lead they had quickly built up but a number of forays were comfortably managed by Ormskirk before quickly moving play upfield with a series of bursts and offloads to supporting players.
Winnington were defending well but eventually Ormskirk crashed over the line to cleanly ground the ball only for play to be called back to give a five meter scrum to the home side for reasons the players could not understand.
It was however a fairly brief respite for Winnington as Ormskirk soon re-established their momentum and crossed over the line for a well taken and well worked unconverted try to cut the deficit to seven points.
Heads were very much up now but this was to be their only score of the half as the game developed into a hard tackling, big hitting arm wrestle which finally proved fruitful for the visitors at the end of the half as they crashed over the line between the posts and with a successful conversion, went in at 19-5 to the good.
The Ormskirk Ladies half time talk focussed on all the positives from the first forty minutes and the need to keep to the agreed match plan, confident they could turn the scores around.
The second half very much belonged to Ormskirk as they comfortably managed a number of Winnington attacks as well as opening up the field of play with waves of open, running rugby and fine ball handling skills resulting in some exquisite passages of play.
Just as determined as Ormskirk were to cross the try line, Winnington were as keen to defend it and the match was developing into even more of a spectacle of open passages of play, thundering tackles and many examples of off-the-cuff innovation.
Eventually Winnington felt the pressure and buckled under the constant onslaught to concede two unconverted tries to bring the match to within one score at 19-15 to Winnington.
As the closing moments agonisingly passed by and the clock “in the red” for the final passage of play, Ormskirk Ladies raised a final onslaught on the visitors line, throwing the ball and caution to the wind as play quickly moved from the left touchline through many pairs of hands before finally settling in the hands the Greens right winger and with no more than ten meters to the try line a match winning score looked on the cards.
The Winnington ladies, however, had other ideas and a multi player crash tackle forced the desperate winger into touch and into the end of the match.
A superb eighty minutes of running rugby, quality ball handling skills, guts, determination, big hits galore and wonderful sportsmanship from both sides.
Although this was the final match of this season’s fixtures, preparations will soon begin to prepare for next season.
Any ladies with an interest in trying rugby will be most welcome to pop down, meet everyone and try your hand.
Details can be found on the club website and from the club.
The Mens section do have some home fixtures remaining and all are most welcome to come down and enjoy the occasions.