Ripon Girls RUFC v Castleford Girls by Simon Lovel

Ripon U15 Girls hosted Castleford for a friendly match fielding a full squad and playing on the 1st team pitch 13 aside 4 quarters of 20mins.

From Ripon’s kick off it was very apparent what a well drilled, and experience side their opponents were and Ripon soon found themselves entrenched defending in their own half. This was going to be a battle with hard running, high impact tackles and bruising rucks. With only 7 minutes gone the first injury came to Castleford.
Despite the injury Castleford kept coming and Ripon spent the last 10mins defending their try line with quick line speed, drift defence and a determination to keep Castleford out until the end of the 1st quarter, with the scores matching the temperature 0-0.

The second quarter was a hard brutal repeat of the 1st with Ripon again defending throughout. Ripon nearly scored with Alice off- loading to Lauryn who ran clear from defence to the half way line where she was unlucky to be tapped tackled as she broke free. However this was only a brief respite from the Castleford onslaught and it was left to hard work and playing for each other as a team that kept the scores even until the last minute of the period when Castleford eventually scored a converted try to bring the score to 0-7.

KO to start the 3rd period is where Ripon U15 came of age having been on the ropes for half the match they found the strength of character to take to the current Yorkshire champions. Every player stood up to be counted as one and given the amount of penalties and forced errors including high tackles it was clear that Ripon had really rattled their opponents. This was a team effort and it is hard to pick out individuals however Jasmine Dixon and Lauryn Corbett were immense and carried the ball breaking the game line on numerous occasions Katie Greensit had some great runs and tackled anything that moved, however despite the effort and territory advantage it was Castleford who scored against the run of play at the end of the 3rd period 0-14.

The final quarter saw no let-up in intensity and physicality of the contest and again Castleford despite holding the lead were pressured into a series of forced errors resulting in one of their players being sin binned for yet another high tackle. With the advantage it was the Ripon pack who took the initiative and kept the ball in hand driving Castleford back into their own half however again against the run of play they scored and unconverted try 0-19. With the advantage over and Castleford back to full strength they finished the game off with a final late converted try. Final score 0-26.

This was an immense performance by Ripon in what is only their 4th full game against one of the best and most experienced sides in Yorkshire. The U15 girls should be very proud of what they have achieved and Castleford should be worried about the next time they face a side that has come of age. Castleford girls named Ripons scrum half Maggie Tattersall as woman of the match

photos of the match are available here https://www.dropbox.com/sh/igphtt8wpwr34r1/AAB5bdc_nKQUYqPLSHWYDDHea?dl=0
courtesy of Dave Naylor