Christmas comes early for unbeaten ladies

Newbury Blues arrived in a wintry Gloucestershire to face a team sitting third in the league who had run them very close at Monks Lane, where the accuracy of Chloe Hunt’s boot secured a 38-29 home side victory.

With the pitch deemed playable, Drybrook showed no sign of feeling the cold as they hit Newbury with the kitchen sink from the kick off, forcing the Blues into a number of uncharacteristic errors. They enjoyed the best of the early scrums and secured far more possession in the opening 15, but Newbury weathered the storm and a turnover from irrepressible vice-captain Megan Horwood allowed then to strike first when Fi Sim’s hard running got the Blues into Drybrook territory. Meg Mason’s lovely handling found Emma Swinton cutting a deceptively simple line through the heart of the home defence and she dotted down almost unchallenged beneath the post and Hunt added the extras.
The try gave Newbury confidence and they began to look for territorial advantage; Horwood and Mason both tested the Drybrook defence with tactical kicking, while the increasingly dangerous back three combinations of Sophie Dowson, Lizzie Harris and Jemma Thripp continually probed out wide, with Dowson in particular making some serious yards.

But it took a stroke of luck to secure their second try; a probing Mason grubber kick ricocheted off a Drybrook blocker and Ivanov was able to react quickest, plucking the ball out of the air and making 15 metres before running out of steam; luckily Niki Paton was on her shoulder and finished things off, for Hunt to convert smartly again.

Despite being two tries to the good Newbury were still finding themselves under pressure in the scrum, although make shift flanker Lauren Hassett was making herself a real nuisance in disrupting the Drybrook line out. So it was a blow for the home side when, having failed to convert a series of aggressive phases into a score, their scrum was turned over and Megan Horwood picked from the base to make huge blindside yards and release Niki Paton for her second try and Newbury’s third.

The second half was as topsy-turvy as the first, with both teams enjoying purple patches of possession and defending valiantly when they needed to (Swinton, Mustard and Hassett put in some particularly brave hits for the visitors). But the Blues were always the more dangerous team when they got the ball out wide, their back line finding some real fluency thanks to the hours put in on the training pitch. Swinton found another lovely line and should have scored but the final pass was judged marginally forward; Horwood and Mustard continued to make a complete nuisance of themselves in the ruck, and Drybrook’s frustration led to some late indiscipline that almosty led to a fourth Newbury try.
But they happily took the three try margin, and the first placed league position that came with it. For the Blues (and especially their captain), no further Christmas presents are required: no matter what 2018 brings, the first half the season has been an absolute cracker.