Bristol Ladies v DMP Sharks

Review

Bristol Ladies fell to tough 22-30 defeat this afternoon at home to Darlington Mowden Park Sharks. Bristol Ladies led at half time, but the Sharks fought back during the second half to secure the win.

Katie Mason scored first after skipping through the Sharks defence, with Amber Reed adding the conversion. 10 minutes later Izzy Noel Smith showed some amazing footwork to get the ball out to May Campbell, who linked brilliantly with Sophie Hemming who then guided Siobhan Longdon Hughes into the corner bringing the score to 12 – 0. Sharks got one back before half time, ending the first half at 12 – 5.

Sharks upped their game for the second half, coming straight out a scoring a try. Bristol responded with Reed slotting home a penalty to take the score to 15 – 17.

Sharks played well, captialising on some individual errors and extending their advantage with another try, followed by a penalty. With the score at 15 – 27, Noel Smith was forced off with a head injury, leaving Bristol with only 14 players on the pitch. Nevertheless, Bristol pushed on, and Amber Reed dived over the try line to ensure a tense end to the game. Soon after, Sharks slotted home a penalty taking the score to 22 – 30, and leaving Bristol with too much to do in the final 5 minutes.

Head Coach LJ Adams praised the girls 1^st half performance ‘We played good rugby in the first half and put ourselves in a good position to close out the game, however we failed to do this. Basic skills; catching, passing and tackling let us down in the second half today. It will be a tough week of training for the girls – we need to get the basics right before we face Lichfield at the weekend. We weren’t helped with a smaller than usual squad due to illness and with a large number of injuries during the game, and there were some good individual performances too – we just need to work on out consistency going forward’.