 Lichfield RFC was the setting for the Championship cup game between the winners of the North (DMP SHARKS) and the South (BATH) Championship leagues. The game was also to be a promotion play-off, with the winners being promoted to the Women’s Rugby Premiership league.
Both teams showed their nerves early on with some handling errors and a few penalties, highlighting just how much was riding on the result. Bath opened the scoring, with a penalty kick, giving them an early 3 point lead. After a failed penalty attempt by the Sharks, the score remained at 3-0. Bath were finally rewarded after almost 15minutes of sustained attack in the Sharks 22m,with a try thanks to some excellent pace and offloading skills releasing full back Daryl Poole to skip through a tackle and score under the posts.
With a successful conversion, the half time score of 10-0 to Bath left the 30 strong group of Sharks supporters shocked, and tense. After some powerful words from coaches Jo Hull and Tamara Taylor (currently out through injury) Sharks started the second half with a new conviction. The first Sharks score came after half way through the second half when quick hands saw the Bath defence outflanked and winger, Morag Paterson went over in the corner. England Fly Half, Katy McLean, then slotted over the conversion to leave only a 3 point difference between the two teams.
The Sharks’ physicality at the scrum and breakdown proved too strong for Bath forcing several penalties in the last 10 minutes of the game. After missing a further attempt at goal and pushing a drop goal wide, Katy McLean found her form and scored the all important penalty just 1 minute before the end of normal time to leave the scores level at 10-10.
A draw at full time meant the suspense continued with a further 10 minute period of ‘golden points’ to seal the fate of the teams. Going into extra time the next points scored would win the game. With a plan to set up play for a drop goal attempt, the Sharks battled hard with some fantastic work from the forwards and camped in the Bath 22m, refusing to budge. With only minutes left to play, slick hands from the backs saw England U20s player, Rosie Fong, cutting back against the Bath defence, wrong footing the full back to dive over the line, scoring the winning try!
The game concluded 15-10, with the Sharks realising their 3 year dream of being promoted back into the Premiership. |