Hastings & Bexhill 17 Footscray 44

7th March 2010, 3pm, away to Footscray

Hastings and Bexhill Ladies were finally able to continue their season with an away game to Footscray on Sunday.

After a successful start to the season - a 25 - 5 home win against Aylesford Bulls, injury, pregnancy and work committments prevented H&B from being able to meet any opponents until now.  

With a depleated squad and lack of match experience this season hanging over their heads, H&B came on to the pitch suprisingly fiesty and ready for action.

In the first few minutes of the game, H&B pressured Footscray into giving away a penalty in their own half. Rookie, Naomi Shorttle, stepped up to the plate and produced a beautiful penalty kick through the centre of the posts to open the scoring at 3-0 to H&B.

Excellent kicking from hand by Naomi led to an exciting surge by H&B who almost stole the first try of the game.

Unfortunately this was not meant to be and lack of match fitness allowed Footscray to dominate the try scoring department. H

&B’s Sammy Palmer replied to their dominance with two well built tries, both of which were converted by star of the match, Naomi Shorttle.  

Whilst H&B suffered with missed tackles and ‘ball watching’ at times, the main part of their performance was determined, spirited and exciting to watch.

In the second half the ladies were able to channel the strength of Hulk Hogan and put in some awesome tackles, making up for any that were missed earlier on and enabling them to keep the score at a respectful level.

A special mention was made to Laura White who came out of retirement to stand in at scrum half, a position she had never played in before, but, was somehow able to produce a game any regular scrum half would have been proud of.  

Man of the match awards went to Sammy Palmer in the forwards and to back, Naomi Shorttle who was outstanding in her first game of rugby.