Shelford Ladies V Old Leamingtonians
13-12-09
22 - 3

After a month off Shelford Ladies had a return match with Old Leamington Spa at home. The rustiness showed in the first 20 minutes, but Shelford showed their true colours and grit, getting into the full flow of the game by the end of the first half.
The first half was a hard fought affair with Old Leamingtonians showing a much-improved scrum from the last game, which kept Shelford on the back foot. Although Shelford found their feet and fought back hard in the scrums within the second half. A penalty conceded by Shelford within their twenty-two allowed Old Leamingtonians to put their first and only three points on the scoreboard.
Shelford fought back and the attacking backs proved too hot to handle for Old Leamingtonians. The first try for hat trick hero Lizelle Heather came after some great work down the blind side and running straight and hard to burst through the back line to score under the posts. Successfully converted by Tia Martin, putting Shelford in the lead, where they stayed for the rest of the match.
The best backs moves of the game resulted in a case of try aversion by birthday girl fullback Lynne Pilbeam, with her lack of awareness that her elbow was on the line and a little stretch would have sealed a great birthday present try.
Lizelle's Heather second try proved that going the same way of play will result in points, and a pick and drive from two metres had another 5 points notched up on the board.
Half time eventually came after almost an hour on the on the referees dodgy watch! Luckily for him the boisterous Shelford support provided by the Development 5 made sure he knew when the ball wasn't straight in the line out.
After the team talk from the coaches, Shelford produced a completely different display of excellent rucking form the forwards and great phases of play, following clean ball from bases of scrums and rucks. Running straight and playing a slightly wider game, didn't result in a large number of tries but it kept the territorial advantage heavily in favour of Shelford Ladies.
The first try in the second half came for Lottie Ayres on the wing after some great hands along the back line, from the back of a scrum, giving Lottie Ayres a twenty metre run for the line, clearing an attempted tackle to score.
Lizelle Heather added to the Old Leamingtonians woes with even more destructive running and finishing off her hat trick barging through three would be tacklers, with excellent hand offs and hard running.
The biggest thing the Shelford Ladies can take away from the second half was the fact that no points were conceded to seal off a comfortable win for Shelford.