Portsmouth 48 v 29 Barnes Ladies

Barnes Ladies kicked off the 2013/14 campaign with a tricky away tie at Portsmouth. As the equivalent fixture last year resulted in a hefty 88-0 spanking for Barnes, there was a degree of trepidation amongst the girls as we boarded the Dave-driven bus. The portents weren't good... We were a player down before we set off and the minibus was suffering from some worrying mechanical faults (I maintain that Dave cannot possibly have stalled it that many times unless there was a glitch of some kind).

Preparation had gone well though. Talented England scrum-half La Toya Mason assisted Andy with our last training session, ushering a relatively civilised group of women toward the heretofore unexplored territory of conspiracy to commit GBH. And with new captain Rachel a steadying hand at the helm - truly a case of an old head on, erm, old shoulders - we arrived on the south coast keen to make amends for last term.

As in recent seasons Barnes Ladies are somewhat...bijou. The opposition, meanwhile, rather unsportingly fielding normal sized players, held an advantage of at least 2 stone per player. Thus it was not particularly shocking when, on receiving the ball from the kick-off, Portsmouth employed the old 'crash through the middle of the titchy defenders' tactic. Despite some valiant defensive play, this strategy appeared to pay off, with two fairly early forwards tries. Then, under pressure from a cracking chase at the restart, Portsmouth knocked on. With ball in hand for the first time Barnes hit back. A lovely miss pass from Lorraine, at fly half for the first time, opened up their defence and sent Rhiannon scampering through for a deserved try.

Another period of bullocking runs and a few deft offloads and Portsmouth added a couple more tries, but as the half wore on Barnes's defence stepped up a level and treated the opposition runners to some thumping hits. Particularly memorable was the moment when their rangy lock realised she only had to run over our new Spanish signing and decidedly diminutive wing, Jenny, and glory would be hers. Jenny, however, proved unrunoverable and smashed said lock into the ground, causing a mild but discernible tsunami on the Isle of Wight. iBoom! As a slightly disconcerted Portsmouth changed tack and tried to rumble a maul toward our 22, Captain Rachel marshalled an excellent counter which saw the ball stripped and fed to Barnes's back line. Rhiannon once more spotted the gap and over she went for her second, clinically converted by Clare, also in her first game for Barnes. One more score for Portsmouth (unfortunately gifted by a couple of missed tackles) and half time was blown.

From the restart Barnes took the game to Portsmouth, making gains through some cracking forwards play, which we couldn't quite convert into scores. Now we had the ball, though, it felt as though points would come and we were unlucky to concede a try on the break from the half way line. This was, however, Portsmouth's last successful foray though the middle. Midway through the half, despite having taken a couple of heavy knocks, Barnes repelled a ferocious 5 minute assault on the line, eventually turning over another maul to allow Lorraine to clear the lines. This massive defensive effort seemed to have taken its toll on Barnes and the game began to slip away. Portsmouth, having given up on trying to smash through a vertically-challenged, yet increasingly impenetrable wall, took to working the wings. With some impressive multi-phased offload-heavy play, they deserved their final two tries, and as the clock ran down it looked as though all Barnes would have to show for the second half was a broken Captain (La Toya's tips had clearly confused Rachel, who launched a brutal assault on somebody's boot with her forehead, leading both to her premature exit from the fray and to her acquiring a spectacular bump the size of a Barnes winger).

Then, with five minutes to go, we remembered that we're actually rather good at this running rugby lark. First, we swooshed it down the line finding Emily on the right wing. She had two to beat and left them standing with blistering pace to score Barnes's third. Number four came almost immediately with Dibs taking a great pass from Jenny and running forty yards up the wing. She was taken down ten yards out but Abi was in close enough support to pick up the loose ball and finish off the move. And then, directly from the restart, the ball was once again shipped out to Emily. Despite knowing exactly what was coming, Portsmouth could do nothing about it, and she charged round their defence and ran in a fifty yard try under the posts - not bad for her first ever game. A final conversion from Clare and the match was over. Score: a respectable 48-29.