Bury St. Edmunds Ladies 05 - 38 H&D Owls

After a month’s layoff, Harwich Owls visited their local rivals for a league game with an almost full strength team.

From the kick off it was clear that the two teams’ forwards were evenly matched but within five minutes the extra pace of the Harwich backs caused problems for the home defence as the ball was worked wide for Annalise Allan to score in the corner.

The match settled down to an arm wrestle between the two packs. The Owls’ well organised defensive lines kept the Bury attacks limited to the centre of the pitch and some good pick and goes at the base of rucks by Abi Cutts and newcomer Beth Lemessurier kept the home defence under pressure. A quickly taken penalty by Mimi Montgomery saw her bursting down the centre of the pitch and an offload out of the tackle put Kimberley Hutchins in for a try under the posts, converted by Allan.

Indiscipline crept into the visitors game and a series of penalties moved the Bury side into the Harwich 22 and from a tapped penalty 10 metres the home team’s hooker to crash over the line for a try. The Owls responded quickly and a break by Montgomery put Allan through a gap in the home defence on the halfway line and after breaking a couple of tackles, she scored under the posts but somehow missed the conversion.

The second half continued in the same vein as the first - The Harwich defence holding firm with some strong tackling from Naomi Dobner, Maria Laidler and Lauren Richardson. Beth Flatt linked the pack well with backs and also put in some strong tackles. A couple of breaks by the home team were stopped with good cover tackles from Sophia Tricker and the visitors line never really seemed under threat.

The pace of the Harwich backs became an even bigger problem for the home side and Hutchins was in scorching form scoring a hat-trick of tries in the space of 20 minutes all of which were converted by Allan.

This was a solid performance by the Harwich side and provided some great entertainment for the spectators but with the next couple of games being against sterner opposition it provided the type of examination the Owls needed as preparation.

Report by Walter Blacker