Sunshine and Rugby

Last weekend we hosted a friendly game with fellow London team Beckenham Ladies. The sun shone down on us as we welcomed some returning legends and some new Barnes faces to the pitch. We started off very positively, spending a lot of time in Beckenham's half of the pitch for the first twenty minutes, opening the scoring with a fantastic snipe from Circe along the wing. However, we conceded two tries shortly after and from there we seemed to struggle to recover.

There were some moments of pure brilliance, with Tash and Captain Nowikow smashing through the defensive line, as did Caro who was debuting at 10 for us. Ice and Leah delivered some great tackling in defense, while Mim and Emily made some positive attacking runs that produced promising breaks. Unfortunately for us, Beckenham Ladies managed to close us down each time and we battled to hold on to the valuable ground that had been won.

The last twenty minutes were tough as Beckenham exploited our weaknesses and at times seemed invincible - especially in one particular passage of play that saw the ball passing between three players who backed each other all the way down the pitch and managed to offload brilliantly each time we tackled them. They were fantastic opponents and despite the pasting they dealt us, it was a great game with a positive spirit throughout. We wish them the best of luck for the rest of their season!

Well done to our long lost Jo who played a good two-thirds of the game on her return - and earned some impressive blisters along the way. We had four players pulling on Barnes shirts for the first time - welcome to Leah, Lizzie, Emily and Mim. Well done also to Captain Nowikow who won 'Forward of the Match' while Circé took 'Back of the Match' and Carolanne claimed the 'Player's player' pint.

We'll be playing our first league game of the season on Sunday at 2:30pm. The game will be played at the Barn Elms Sports Trust pitches and we'll be facing newly promoted High Wycombe Belles.