Eagles Women Match Reports
v ADFA 7/6
VICTORY! We won 52 – 0 against ADFA in this make up game played at night at Dowsett Oval, ADFA.
We started the game with great structure, hitting our forward pods and rumbling the ball forwards. This saw us pressing their line and Maggie (the hangover) Downs scoring after 5 minutes.
Good support play continued with our Pick and Goes being particularly effective. At 9 minutes, after a long series of phases, Nera Wright scored beside the posts. Sophie Lambie converted this one and it was 12-0
Maintaining good structure, we kept the pressure on ADFA. Ari Glass did a charge down that helped pin them to their line. This led to Sammy Chikirov scoring a try at 18 minutes.
We continued with a nice mix of Pick and go and spinning it out to the backs which saw Naks (Nakiya Smith) score at 28 minutes.
Rachele Brown completed the scoring for the first half just before half time to make it 27 – 0.
The second half started well with Rhi Ford charging into the ADFA pack and making some good metres. At 2 minutes, Sheree Logan scored after some good work by the forwards.
Shayna Siakimotu pulled off 2 good tackles in a row when ADFA tried running it back at us. We got a turnover and then spun the ball out to the right wing. Our winger, Charlie Foster, ran around her opposite number then when the cover arrived, did a grubber and chased it. She regathered and scored near the corner for Charlie’s best bit of play to date. 8 minutes into the 2nd half and we were up 37 – 0.
Off the kick off, Rhi Ford went for another charge into the ADFA team and made 15 valuable metres. From the ensuing ruck, Rach Brown was put in space and ran 20m before she was tackled 10 m out. (we all thought she was going to score!). The ball was spun from the ruck and Charlie went in for her 2nd try for the night. 42-0.
Sophie Lambie came off with a cut to her head after banging it into Shayna Siakimotu’s hard noggin when they both tackled an ADFA girl. Shayna, not wearing headgear like Soph, stayed on unscathed!
Some nice backline work saw Courtney Smith go on a charge down the left hand side to make some good metres in heavy traffic
22 minutes into the 2nd half, Naks (Nakiya Smith) went on a great run down the left hand sideline, palmed off a few would be tacklers and scored. 47-0.
Off the kickoff we marched up the field and got a penalty for not rolling away. Ari Glass took a quick tap and ran 20m before being brought down 10m short of the line. A few charges at the line by the forwards saw the ball go out to Naks for her to score again at 27 minutes into the 2nd half. 52 – 0.
This was the end of the scoring, but not the good work. Ellen Anable pulled off 2 tackles in a row just off the ruck to shut down an ADFA counter attack. Sammy Chikirov went on one of her trademark rampaging runs for 35m to be pulled down 15m short of the line. We couldn’t convert this good work to a score as we ran out of time.
A lot of good play displayed today but we lost our structure a bit with some “white line fever” creeping into our game as it progressed.
Our 3 try girl Nakiya Smith gets 3 points. Rachel Brown gets 2 points for some good running and tackling and Charlie Foster 1 point for a great individual try
v Uni-Norths 2/6
Another good game and again halving the margin from last time we played them. This time we lost 5 – 29
We started the match with a good jackal by Vikki Fischer and some good counter rucking but this was nullified by some lack of rolling away at the breakdown (we’ve got to stop the high penalty count against us gals!). Our solid defence and running saw us spend 12 ½ minutes in the Owls half. This led to them doing a clearing kick that went just behind our debutant fullback who fumbled the ball and the Owls were in for a try against the run of play.
The next 18 minutes were a bit of an arm wrestle with both sides having a few good runs and tackles. We lost the ball a few times through bad ball protection (leading with the ball into the tackle) and getting stripped.
At 30 minutes in we lost the ball forward and then from the ensuing centre field scrum on our 22m, Uni Norths broke through 3 tackles to score 15m in from the Right hand side line. 5 minutes later, just as the half time bell was about to go, we missed 5 tackles to let the Owls in for another try and the half time score was 0-19.
2nd half saw some good defence with Sophie Lambie sliding out nicely to nullify a 3 on 2 that Owls had created on the left hand sideline. Rhi Ford pulled off one of her trademark big hits and NAILED some poor Uni-Norths girl who thought that she’d run at Rhi!
5 minutes in Uni Norths had a rolling maul end about 300 mm short of the line for a try to be awarded! Hmmmm not happy Jan.
This seemed to fire a few of the girls up and Rhi Ford went on a Beast run for 20 m in heavy traffic. Bumping off would be tacklers like she was trotting into the surf!. Some good sustained play for the next 14 minutes saw us moving up the paddock. Shayna Siakimotu tackled tirelessly and bossed rucks to help our team maintain territory or the ball. The good play led to Maggie Downs getting the ball out on our right to score 15m in from the sideline. 19 minutes into the 2nd half and the score was 5 – 24.
Shortly after we relaxed a bit and missed a tackle. Owls went in again at 22 minutes to lead 5 – 29. This was the end of the scoring but this was mainly due to some good defence by Sophie Lambie followed by Ellen Anable pulling off a good tackle too. Rhi Ford pulled off another beast hit too in this passage of play.
At 30 minutes Owls made a bit of a break down our right hand side (numbers girls!) and Sammie Wood (Woody) pulled off a ball and all tackle to save the try. Shortly after the game was called off when the Owls 5/8 got knocked out with a couple of minutes to go.
3 points to Rhi Ford for a solid tackling and running game. 2 points to Sophie Lambie for good defensive work. 1 point to Shayna Siakimotu for her tireless tackling and ruck work.
v Vikings 26/5
Ok so we lost 52 – 0 but it was less than half of what they scored against us last time! So we were obviously twice as good as last time we played them!
The defence was a lot improved from the last time we played them but we still had trouble shutting down Taylor Stanford. We had tightened up a lot around the ruck and managed to stop leaking points here and in cover so this was pleasing.
We actually pulled off some great tackles! Woody (Sammie Wood), Naks (Nakiya Smith) and Shayna pulled off some copybook cover tackles to shut down some Viking incursions. Woody in particular coming up with a couple of very good tackles in both halves to keep the Viqueens honest.
Other notable performances were :-
Vikki Fischer was tireless as usual (she’s a machine!) and kept going and going and going. Tackling, Jackaling and taking the ball up.
Nera Wright made a couple of good bullocking runs and hits.
Ash Dobson also had some good runs and a few great pick and goes to get us going forward when we needed it.
Rhi Ford had some good runs and a few great pick and goes plus coming up with a couple of copybook tackles as usual too.
3 points Sammie Wood, 2 points Ash Dobson and 1 point Vikki Fischer
Vs. Vikings
In a rematch of the season opener, the women took on the ViQueens at Viking Park.
The last time we met we only had 16 girls and it was a 0 – 110 loss that exposed our defence and fitness in an unflattering light. Saturday we had 22 and lots of good combinations to cover the positions.
Since that day the girls have been doing a LOT of tackling at training and have improved heaps! The only problem this time was it wasn’t quite enough with Tuggeranong coming out winners again 0 – 52.
It wasn’t all bad news and the girls actually had Tuggers defending grimly on their line for 10 minutes before halftime. Pick and goes (our Captain, Ash Dobson and Rhi Ford doing particularly well here) grinding up meters and getting us near their try line. We just needed to spin it out to our waiting backline on our right (with only 2 ViQueens defending there) and we would have gone over for sure.
We also had long periods of time where we kept the opposition scoreless. Sammie (Woody) Wood coming up with a couple of fantastic last-ditch try-savers. Rhi also pulled off a couple of her trademark “Punishers”. Nera also went for a number of her big runs. Gaining lots of metres for us and setting panic amongst the Tuggers defenders.
Some of our defense was ferocious too. Vikki Fischer, Woody, and Rhi combining to bury some poor ViQueens.
Shayna put in her typical hard-working display and was involved in everything. Including a couple of good tackles!
Nakiya (Naks) Smith had a good day being our “Super-sub” playing Wing, centre, halfback and 5/8 – veritable one-woman team! Thanks, Naks.
The decision for the points was hard as there were a lot of good efforts displayed. In the end, we went for Woody for 3 for her sterling defensive effort, 2 for Ash for her punishing ruck work and running and 1 for Vikki for being a machine and going hard all day!
Uni-Norths next weekend. Let’s get to training and keep on improving!