Dates for diaries

22 November - Eastern Counties training at Wymondham meet 1:30pm

29 November - Eastern Counties training and trials at Colchester meet 12:30pm

6 December - County festival at Sleaford

(All the above have details on the Eastern Counties Blog site - follow link in side bar)

13 December - Norfolk Nomads v Welwyn (Venue and time to be confirmed)

Please bear these dates in mind.

There will be additional training dates after Christmas for both county and region as well as activity at the club over this period.

Eastern Counties vs Kent vs Essex

Shelby, Katie and Emily with the U15's
Chloe, Alex, Kelsey and Maya with the U18's

Kelsey, Chloe, Alex, Shelby, Katie, Maya and Emily joined up with their respective county squads and 9 new girls from Colchester (Yep, I thought Colchester was in Essex too) to play a triangular tournament against Essex and Kent.

We were very pleased to see the Colchester girls there to bolster our numbers and hopefully bring some more competition for squad places.

It is also worth noting that Colchester had the choice between E.C. and Essex and chose to come to E.C.

The U18's with 7 new faces in their number, a squad quite literally thrown together on the day and with many of the girls playing out of position showed some flashes of quality and an awful lot of heart but lost both of their matches to strong, well-drilled opposition.

The U15's, who have played a lot more rugby between them but not as a group and not at this level, lost their first match to a very big Kent team before taking on their Essex counterparts who they had had a titanic struggle with 2 weeks ago at Wymondham.

This match followed a similar pattern with Essex scoring first with a well worked try and conversion before Eastern Counties struck back with a try of their own in the first half.

Unfortunately the E.C. squad had suffered injuries to key players in the first match leaving them with only 9 fit players and even with help from Kent the remaining girls could not manage to find another score and as darkness drew in they eventually capitulated allowing Essex to score another converted try making the final score 14-5.

Eastern Counties are still very much at the development stage and none of the girls should feel too disappointed with these results. In fact they should take a lot of heart from their displays, the will is there and with a few more training sessions and a bit more organisation and experience they will become a force to be reckoned with in the coming seasons.

Many thanks to Essex for hosting us and to Kent for lending us some players to complete our second fixture on what was a really enjoyable afternoons rugby.

The next E.C. training session is at Wymondham on the 22nd November 1:30 for 2:00 o'clock start, I look froward to seeing you all there.

England Game

The proposed trip to the Engalnd v NZ game at Esher RFC on 14 November has been cancelled but all is not lost as Sky have confirmed that the game will be televised.

The match is on 14 November at 4:00pm.

Eastern Counties training Sunday

There is another Eastern Counties training session at 13:30 this Sunday (1st November) at Wymondham.
Therefore we will not be training at Swaffham but I do expect to see you all at Wymondham.
I expect there to be some new girls from Lakenham to swell the U18 squad and I am sure some of the U15's who could not make the last session will also be there.
Please arrive at Wymondham by 13:30 as we would like to get started by 14:00.

Norfolk Nomads vs Lakenham

On Sunday Norfolk Nomad U18 girls converged on Lakenham to play a friendly match against Lakenham U18's.
Most of the Nomad team had played for the Eastern Counties development squad against Essex the previous week, proving the dominance of Norfolk girls rugby in the region.
This must change soon and hopefully Suffolk and Cambridgeshire will come up with some girls to give us true E.C. squads.
However I digress.
This was the Lakenham girls first ever match and like the Essex vs E.C. match of the previous week resulted in a very one-sided scoreline.
Nomads were more experienced in their matchplay and this showed throughout the match with their speed of thought and more direct running lines constantly breaking through the brave Lakenham line resulting in 4 tries apiece for Alex and Taryn, 2 each for Milly and Maya and 1 for Ellie with Alex converting 7.
Lakenham, for their part, played some good rugby and put together some good moves combining their forwards and backs, pinning Nomads behind their own 10 metre line for a while, but Nomads greater experience showed through and they were able to weather the storm.
Thanks Tidder and the Lakenham girls for an enjoyable mornings rugby, played in the right spirit and we look forward to meeting you all again later in the season when I am sure the difference in the teams will not be so great.

New Eastern Counties site

This evening sees the launch of the new Eastern Counties website.
This one will in the coming days have content being added for the girls game in the region and hopefully it will become the focus of communication for that level of the game in the area.
In my opinion one of the main hurdles over the last season has been the dis-jointed communication (not from the want of trying I hasten to aim) as trying to get the message out there via word of mouth, email and the like will only get so far.
Now the activity, contacts, dates, match reports and the like will be on the official site and hopefully the communication will get to the audience it is intended for. To that end please visit the site;
http://www.ecrfu.com/
It is still in development but please encourage everyone to go and have a look.

Eastern Counties Development vs Essex

Maya, Kelsey, Chloe and Alex with the U18 squad

Katie, Shelby and Emily with the U15's

Hi Spike, girls and fellow bloggers, remember me, I used to publish my thoughts about girls rugby on this blogsite quite regularly.

Unfortunately due to work pressure and computer gremlins I haven't been able to get on the site as much, some would say that this was a good thing!!

So to bring you up to date;

Last weekend 7 Swaffham girls represented Eastern Counties development squads in both the U15 and U18 teams that played Essex at Wymondham.

Kelsey, Maya, Chloe and Alex turned out for the U18's and Shelby, Emily and Katie, making a welcome return from injury, all played for the U15's.

The scoreline in the U18's match was far too many to Essex and nil to E.C and this, on the face of it would seem like a bad thing.

However Eastern Counties could only muster 13 bodies and with almost half of these having only played a handful of games between them the chances of them beating or even competing with an Essex 'development' 15, boasting 11 girls that had played for East region last season, were always going to be slim.

I feel I must heap huge praise on all of the E.C. U18's, they never let their heads drop and came off the pitch at the end full of beans having thoroughly enjoyed the match and having met up with some old friends at the same time.

The U15's match was a much more even affair with the two development teams trading scores throughout a pulsating match, E.C. eventually losing 22-15 with tries from Nina, Rachel and Mollie.

I feel it is also worth mentioning that this was the first game of the season, after only 1 training session together, for all of the girls and they should all feel extremely proud of their performances and I know that they will become stronger, both individually and as a group over the coming weeks and months.