Old Leamingtonians Ladies maintain unbeaten home status.

The New Year has started on a positive note for the ladies of Old Leamingtonians with a 46-12 win over Hereford Greyhounds.  The ladies are still unbeaten at home this season and are currently ranked second in Women’s Midlands 2.

Greyhounds were unable to field a full side so Old Leams winger Jenny Martin joined the opposition to ensure a more equal contest. It was testimony of the friendly spirit in which matches between these two teams are usually played. Never the less, Old Leams made no secret of their intentions and after 7 minutes, Centre Kelly McLeod scored the first try of the afternoon.

Skipper Christie Honor took care of the second try which was duly converted by Fly Half Vicky Stokes.

A defensive error from Old Leams saw Greyhound score and convert their only try of the first half.

The departure of Tami Summers saw winger Celina Bennet move to the full-back position with Claire Penna posted on the wing. Bennet did a good job and scored her try with a fantastic dive for the line. Number 8 Christie Honor saw no less than 3 attempts at a try help up by Greyhounds, a feat that was celebrated with gusto by the team from Hereford.

Old Leamingtonians were combining well on the pitch and were dominant in all parts of the game. The only aspect of their game that did not seem to work was the line-out. Good lifting and jumping from Greyhounds resulted in Old Leamingtonians not winning a single line-out for the entire match.

By half time, OLs were up 29-7 thanks to further tries from Scrum-half Charlie Graham (2) and Claire Penna.

In the second half, Old Leamingtonians seemed to lose their way a little and they let Greyhounds run at them. This resulted in another try, taking the score to 29-12. The opposition found inspiration from their try and started to seriously disrupt the Old Leams scrums. The ever reliable Claire Penna scored her second try, converted by Stokes with yet another 2 attempts judged as being help-up by the opposition.

In the dying seconds, Scrum-Half Charlie Graham scored her third try of the match in the far left hand corner, taking the score to its final 46-12.

Old Leams have managed to hold on to their very positive performance at the first half of the season. However, if the team wants to have a shot at winning the league, they need to become much more dynamic and communication between forwards and backs needs to improve.  Their current position of 2^nd in the league table might be slightly over inflated due to the large number of teams that have not played their scheduled matches. There is however no denying that this side has a lot of talent and with time, they should be able to step up through the leagues.