Lightning can’t handle explosive display by Harlequins
LOUGHBOROUGH LIGHTNING 19
HARLEQUINS LADIES 40 LOUGHBOROUGH Lightning fell to their first home defeat on Saturday after a 19–40 loss to visitors Harlequins Ladies in the third round of the Tyrrells Premier 15s competition.
Given their home success a couple of weeks ago to Worcester Valkyries, Lightning had established themselves as a team to watch but were up against the current league champions.
An explosive first half saw both teams scoring and converting within the first 10 minutes. Ugiagbe was the first to put points on the board for Lightning, and was followed up by a Phillip conversion.
Pearce then went over in the 12th minute with yet another Phillip conversion to give Lightning the lead but the Quins responded with two more tries to take a 15-14 half time lead.
After the break Quins’ line speed and crash ball play proved effective as they opened the scoring in the second half just two minutes in and again minutes later.
In the 55th minute, Hardy scored for Lightning to stem the tide of Harlequin’s points but this was not enough to halt their impending victory.
Quins managed to score three more times to secure a convincing 40-19 win.
Lightning head coach Rhys Edwards said: “We had good control of the game during the first half however we let Quins in just before the half. We didn’t manage the second half as well as we would have hoped, the ball wasn’t in our possession often enough to make an impact and the quality of the opposition punished us for it.”