Berwick Match Report

Final Score 5-24

Sunday saw the Lismore girls heading to Berwick in less than favourable conditions. Despite having an interesting tour of Berwick and its surrounding areas while hunting for the playing fields Lismore arrived in plenty of time to acclimatise to the ferocious wind and anything else that came at them. A biting wind whipped across the park as Berwick won the toss and chose to have the breeze in their advantage for the first half of the game.

The Berwick scrum half tried to use the wind to their advantage with some pretty hefty kicks, some of which enabled them to make up plenty of ground. Others were cruelly lifted out of bounds, much to the relief of Helen "Hells Bells" McGinley who managed some confident defensive sprinting.

Lismore battled on but Berwick started piling on the pressure with an early score as Lismore were unable to prevent them getting over the try line. The wind thwarted the conversion giving Berwick opening points at 5-0. Lismore quickly retaliated as Nikki "the Doc" Di Rollo broke away and attempted a valiant sprint from the 50m line. The head wind and the 'leggy' Caroline Frew prevented her from reaching the end of the pitch to equalise. The rest of the half proceeded with much to-ing and fro-ing between the sides with neither side really having total advantage but there was soon relief for Lismore as the whistle blew and sides were switched for the second half.

With the gusts now at their backs the young Lismore side were able to produce more attacking rugby, which started with some decent penetrating runs that began tiring out the Berwick pack. Lismore capitalised on the ball retention they had by putting quite a few scores on the doors. Two of the four trys scored by Lismore were the result of runs started outside the 22. One by Cecille "The French Resistance" Lieby who managed to wriggled through the defence on a number of occasions earning her player of the match. And the other by Aileen "The Littlest HookeR" Simmonite who neatly picked up a ball following a good run from Yarrow and planted it between the posts.

The other two trys were the result of brute force, firstly by Sharon who was popped a free kick from Nikki D and thundered forward to securely place the ball over the line. During another play in the game Emily "The Beast" Yarrow managed to stay on her feet long enough to score before being steamrollered by the Berwick prop. The wind showed no respite but two of McGinley's conversions were successful settling the final score at 5 - 35 to the mighty Lismore.

All in all it was a hard fought match on both sides. A special mention has to be made for the three newest additions to the Berwick team. The youngsters had never trained with the team before and put in an admirable performance on the day. It was, however, a solid opening match for Lismore for 2007 that sets them up for a clash against top of the table Aberdeenshire Quines in a rearranged match this Sunday.

Kick off is 2pm at Inch Park.