Ampthill Girls U15, Bury Vixens, Market Harborough Triangular
Ampthill Girls U15 welcomed Bury Vixens and Market Harborough to Dillingham Park for the first time for a 3 way matchup between the clubs. This was the first time that Ampthill and Bury had met in the girls section and Market Harborough were returning the fixture played back on 20th March where they ran out winners 37-5 against the Ampthill girls who were playing only their second competitive fixture.
Ampthill played Bury first on a glorious day for running rugby. But, the opening exchanges were tight and nervy as the girls playing in front of their biggest ever crowd took time to settle. Bury by contrast has some exceptionally talented backs and despite Ampthill growing in dominance in the scrum and forwards ran in two unanswered tries in the first half converting one.
In the second period, Ampthill began to turn their possession advantage in to points with Olivia Luke storming through the broken Bury defence to score running in from 20 metres out. This was quickly followed by another fine break away from Megan Parry who scored a fine try in the corner, both were not converted leaving Ampthill trailing by 2 points. In the final minute of the half the Bury scrum half scored an almost identical try to the one from the first half where she ran in almost unopposed from a scrum 15 metres out. The final whistle went almost immediately to end the game at 10-17 to Bury.
Market Harborough played Bury next running out deserved 32-12 winners. Click here to read their match report.
In the third game Ampthill after some soul searching during the break, almost caused the shock of the day racing into a 3 try lead against Market Harborough by disrupting their natural flowing rhythm with aggressive rucking and forward play. The tries were scored by Kacey Royse, Megan Parry and Chloe Sherwood all from good turnover ball, running in through the fragmented Harborough defence leaving the score at half-time 15-0.
Naturally Harborough rallied and showed great spirit as all good sides do and came back at Ampthill with tries under the posts which was converted and another through sustained pressure where Ampthill’s dogged defence broke to allow them to score making the score 15-12.
In the final two minutes a head injury to one of the Ampthill girls caused a break while she was assessed correctly, which allowed Harborough to regroup prior to the scrum and good recycling of the ball finally created the space required to score, the try was converted and Ampthill’s first win was denied. Final Score 15-19.
Many thanks to Bury and Market Harborough for making the trip across and down to Ampthill and we really look forward to playing again next season, good luck in your final games.
The Ampthill girls however have been on a tremendous journey this season, improving every week with a commitment to training, always playing with passion and always enjoying themselves and having fun.
Huge congratulations to East Midland representatives Megan Parry, Madeline Moore, Amy Tibbet and Megan Carter in their first full season of competitive rugby, the section is growing and with a healthy influx into the U13’s and the potential for a large U18’s squad next season the future of Ampthill Girls Rugby is very bright indeed.
Finally a big thank you to our Girls Section sponsors Ampthill Festival CIC and Ampthill Fireworks, we really appreciate the support.
Next week the final game of the season at Dillingham Park verses Lutterworth KO 2pm.
Girls in years 7, 8, 9,10,11,12 or 13 interested in playing rugby next season please contact AmpthillLadies@instructor.net for more information.