A good day for women's rugby

Amongst the 35 players today at Aldeburgh Rugby Club, there were around ten who had never played contact rugby, around five 18 year olds who had never played adult rugby and a mother and daughter (Michaela and Annabel Scarle) who played their first game of rugby together. The game involved four clubs, Southwold, Aldeburgh, Ipswich and Bury and was staged to give many their first taste of Women's rugby.

The extended warm-up consisted of both a training and briefing session. This gave the coaches an opportunity to allocate positions and even up the teams, run through the basics of passing and tackling and gave the ref a chance to cover the rucking laws.

Without going in to detail about the game, suffice to say that it wasn't obvious that many had never tackled or rucked before, there was some great runs and phases of play but most importantly everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The crowd of supporters were all complimentary and indeed several mentioned that there were usually more fumbles in the men's matches at Aldeburgh!

Try scorers included Annabel, Jasmine, Emma J and Kelly all of which are the club's next generation of players - except Kelly who is a returning last generation!!!!

Many thanks to coaches Rob and Paul for their help in running the day as well as Fletch and EJ for sharing their knowledge and experience.

A good day for Women's rugby.