Bath 10 – St Mary’s 5

 

It was a nasty, miserable, wet day in Bath - perfect conditions for us Mary's! We kicked off with confidence and were very strong up front, dominating the first quarter of the match with some excellent displays coming from our strong pack, allowing a good platform for our backs to perform some great crash balls - nothing could go wrong, or could it?

We went off the boil for a matter of seconds and Bath punished us almost instantly with a forward try (I personally thought that the ball didn’t look like it was grounded properly, but what does an old, fat, pregnant woman know? besides swollen ankles, stretch marks and itchy tits?!!) Anyway, moving on.........

We were quite disgusted, how dare Bath score a try right under our noses, and managed to regain control once again. With our heads and tails up we shortly reciprocated and scored a try of our own with our mighty flanker Emma Willis going over the line with the help of the other 7 forwards right up her arse! Unfortunately we were unable to convert so we stayed level with Bath at 5 all!

At half time with Bath decided to up their game and came back at us more determined and looking stronger than ever and for the first time since these two teams had come together. Bath forwards had the edge over us and although it hurts me to say it, displayed a very high standard of rucking and great ball retention, but not to take anything away from our girls who were outstanding (as always!) in the line out - Janner and Lisa's jumping was fantastic. As was Lucy's control at the throw-ins, (I must just say Lucy, I like your style - there was one point in the match where you went in for a
tackle on Baths No.12, who by the way is a little feisty! I could almost feel the hand off you were about to receive when somehow, you got around the mighty hand and managed to stick her your hand in the mush instead - I think she liked it, not! very impressive indeed!)

Now where was I....! It was apparent that Bath have really come on leaps and bounds, as we weren’t able to dominate the scrums as we had in previous games. We also proved that we too have also upped our game, as we managed still to steal some of Baths put in's and didn't allow them to push us back.

The majority of the third quarter saw Bath camped out in our half and looking very dangerous in attack with their super speedy little No 13 hungry for the try line. Bath were relentless in their attack and with almost constant possession it was only a matter of time before they scored.Mary's defence was solid, we tackled our hearts out, people were throwing themselves at the Bath players and holding on with their fingertips, none more so than our winger Karen - I've never seen someone so determined not to let a player past!! ( No.13 was going to get over that try line over your dead body!)

Our Captain and leader by example Jo Bosch, as always put in some bone breaking tackles, as did our big flanker Emma and literally wiped out several of Bath’s backs!
As painful as this was, it proved that although Bath are a very talented younger side, they let themselves be intimidated by our super strong defence (Not to mention our strong attacking play - which especially came from our awesome No.8 - Rach Horton, who will be sadly missed by all, except Bath of course!). I’m sure with more confidence Bath would've scored more try's but with the likes of Emma (our fire fighting, bricklaying, nutter of a skin head) coming towards you at speed, I can’t blame them!

We managed to get one more chance in attack with a break from Emma (boring!)
galloping up the pitch being stopped only feet from the try line. Unfortunately, we were unable to retain possession and were punished by Bath’s fly half, kicking us back to where we started - *hit!!

It was an exciting; nail biting ( I really thought I was going to go into labour at any minute - poor baby is probably deaf from all the shouting!!) display of Rugby from both sides. Defensively, Mary's strongest performance yet, if only we could've retained the ball a little more and prevented that onslaught of an attack from Bath in the last quarter, the win would've been ours.

Written by Tracey Garrett