Sunday 16th November:  U16 Girls – Leinster League – New Ross v Gorey
Venue: New Ross RFC
Final Score New Ross 26 Gorey 17

For their third match in this year’s Leinster League, the U16 Girls travelled to New Ross for a 3pm kickoff, the match having been rescheduled from Friday due to the bad weather.

From the first whistle New Ross, repeatedly ran straight at Gorey, made progress and eventually scored a try. From the next kickoff, and after a couple of ball carries, Hannah broke through the New Ross defence to score a super try.

Five minutes later, after some good play by the team, Mary got free and sprinted down the sideline to score and put Gorey in the lead 7-10.  With the wind behind them, New Ross kicked well, and they kept gaining ground and putting Gorey under pressure. They had a strong back player, who was an effective runner and who was particularly difficult to get to ground. The pressure paid off for New Ross and they got 3 more tries in the first half, to leave the halftime score 26-10.

The second half was not as free scoring as the first, indeed the Gorey girls did not concede any score in this half. For the first 10 minutes the girls were camped in the opposition 22 and a couple of times were unlucky not to score. Twenty minutes into the half, after a break by Hannah, Heather sprinted through and was tackled just short of the try line, she gave a super off-load to Leah which resulted in a very good try. This was followed by a tricky successful conversion by Hannah.

There was more pressure by Gorey with many runs at the try line, by Lil, Mia, Liliana, Hannah, Cora, Abbie, Amelia and more. Right at the end Ellen broke through and was caught and tackled just short of the try line. The matched ended 26-17 to New Ross.

The team were disappointed with the result, but it was an extremely competitive game.  In the general play, there was very little between the sides, and for most of the second half, they had the upper in hand in terms of territory and possession. Well done to all, the girls played their hearts out and it was a great display of a good team effort.

Next weekend the team is home to Rathdrum, kick off is at 11:00 on Saturday.

Team: 1 Chloe Murphy, 2 Amelia Doherty, 3 Ellen Dixon, 4 Liliana Gawronska, 5 Lil Murphy, 6 Aisling Rooney, 7 Abbie McDonald, 8 Isabelle Maher, 9 Rosie Cooper, 10 Hannah Leacy, 11 Rachel Harkin, 12 Heather Considine, 13 Leah Kinsella, 14 Mary Butler, 15 Zoe D’Arcy (captain), 16 Mia Doherty, 17 Robyn Prendergast, 18 Cora Dunne.