On a blustery and chilly day the Ivel U18 Girls played their first game together.  They were up against a North Dorset side, many of who had played together since they were 12. And the differences were apparent from the start.

The visitors were slow to react to the well drilled and accurate passing of the home side. Due to the ages of the players, with many making their U18 debut including Lydia “Smudge” Smith (who had a storming game),  involved it was decided that scrums should go uncontested and it was following one of these set pieces that North Dorset took the lead.

Ivel were kept on the back foot and in the eighteenth minute they were 10-0 down. Ivel managed a break towards the opposition half but North Dorset turned the ball over to run in through a gap in the defences. Unfortunately, from the restart, the home team caught the ball and ran in uncontested to make the score 27-0 following the conversion.

There followed short spells of pressure from Ivel but again loose handling at the break-down saw the opposition turn the ball over, in their own 22, and run through to score. The conversion was scored to make it 34-0.

Half time came just as Ivel were piling pressure on the Dorset 22 metre line. Unfortunately a knock to the head of the Ivel scrum-half brought the half-time whistle.

Whatever was said at half-time saw Ivel geared up and ready to respond. Unfortunately they conceded a try within 2 minutes of the half starting. But the girls didn’t give up. They kept pushing and trying and came close to breaking down the home defence.

The North Dorset Girls kept on reacting well to any opportunities presented to them by Ivel and ran in another three tries. Ivel did not let their heads drop. They kept driving and, in the last five minutes were camped on the home sides 5 metre line. They just couldn’t breach the defence though.

The final whistle came with Ivel losing by 54-0. But the scoreline does not reflect the efforts of a team that played for each other and can be seen as doing Ivel Barbarians proud.

Coach Dan Hoskins said: “The score is not important. There are some girls here who have not played a game of rugby before today, but you wouldn’t know it. I’m very proud of the performance considering we are basically starting from scratch this season. Wins will come, and then we will see the team bond more and become stronger. More girls are always welcome to join us for training, every Thursday from 6.30pm.”

It was a tough decision to name Player of the Day, but it came down to one of the new girls – Alice Harvey. Congratulations Alice.