Heath Women travelled to Warlingham on Sunday to play against the home side’s newly resurrected Women’s 1st team. Warlingham invited Heath to play in the main headline match on a glorious spring afternoon to celebrate girls and women’s rugby.

With a few of the more experienced Heath players either unavailable or injured it was a great opportunity for the rest of the squad to show what they could do. Warlingham, who were fielding an experienced team, were fast out of the blocks and quickly took advantage showing a physical presence that many of the Heath women had not been used to in recent matches. The opposition kept the ball tight and used their strike runners well, eventually resulting in a pick and go that could not be stopped with Warlingham scoring under the posts.

The next 20 minutes saw Warlingham continually using their big strike running ball carriers to good effect and the play was often camped in the Heath 22. Heath was tenacious in their defence continually tackling more physical players and pushing them back well, but could not stem the tide, eventually conceding a second try out wide.

The remainder of the first half saw much of the play in the Heath half with the home team sticking to their effective game plan of using their ball carrying forwards to good effect. With the Heath defence holding firm they started to come into the game more, winning ball at the breakdown and pushing the opposition back over the gain line. Just before half time Heath won a scrum deep in their own half which saw scrum half and player of the match, Florie Taylor-Waters pick the ball up at the base of the scrum, run the length of the pitch to score a well-deserved try. At half time the score stood at 12-5 to Warlingham.

The second half started very much in the same vein as the first half with Warlingham using their experienced strike runners at every opportunity. They caught Heath napping and scored two quick tries but Heath weathered the storm which saw both sides having forays into the opposition halves. With the Heath captain Nicky Carey leading by example, carrying the ball and gaining several metres she was generally making a pest of herself at the breakdown. Against the run of play Warlingham scored another try in the corner to take the lead 32-5.

With 20 minutes remaining and the home side starting tire, Heath’s fitness began to shine through. The backs and forwards started to interlink resulting in Wensley Paradzai bulldozing her way through four attempted tackles, evading the final line of defence and running clear to score a magnificent 40 metre try.

With only 15 minutes to go, from the next kick off, the Heath forwards passed the ball between them and the backs with fly half Marie Waters, slicing through the middle to canter clear and score under the posts. The try was converted by Lilly Anderson and Heath were in the ascendance! Again, Heath took the ball from the kick off, set up the ruck and from some great interplay between at least four players, Mads Willis side stepped and outpaced the covering defence to score Heaths third try in 15 minutes! With the score at 32-22 and five minutes remaining, Heath threw everything at the opposition in the hunt for a fifth try but eventually ran out of time. The final score remained 32-22 to the hosts Warlingham.

The coaching team were delighted with the progress and resilience of the whole Heath squad with special mentions going to captain Nicky Carey, Charlie Fergusson, Chloe Young, Amy Cooke and Mads Willis for their outstanding tackle count and commitment.

Next Sunday Heath Women are again in action at a festival of rugby at Petersfield RFC. Anyone looking to play in a fun and developing women’s team are very welcome to try out at Heath at any time - training is on a Thursday night at 6:45pm and Sundays 12 noon.

More information rugby@hhrfc.co.uk