Pink Flamingos put gloss on a super season
Bognor RFC’S under-16 girls – aka the Pink Flamingos – travelled to Abbey RFC in Reading for the cup final day of the HOB league.
Having won all their games of the season, and as overall winners, this game was for a cup play-off across all teams, with 1st playing 2nd, 3rd playing 4th and so on.
Bognor were up against Trojans, and it was evident from the start that Trojans clearly wanted victory and to make amends for their loss a few weeks earlier. They came out strong and organised, seriously testing Bognor's resolve and defence.
Trojans went through multiple phases continuously battering the defence going side to side between
the touch lines and menacing Bognor's 22 and 5m lines, eventually scoring around the 20th minute.
Bognor hadn't ventured into the opposition half but following the unconverted Trojan try, the Flamingos reset themselves and went at the opposition, finally breaking into Trojan territory in the 28th minute, with prop Nicole Dobrucka putting the ball over try line. HT 5-5.
The second half opened up for both sides with significantly more end to end play, both teams putting massive offence and defence hits in, going through phase after phase on each other's 5m lines. Both had tries disallowed for being held up.
Flamingos received a yellow card for a head collision and were down to 14 players for an anxious few minutes.
The Flamingos played with more flair and a combination of great set piece as well as some inspirational individual moves including a long distance territory gaining grubber from Alice Welch.
A break finally came with a ripped ball by Summer Riley being fed to Matilda Smith and a three-quarter length pitch run to put down between the posts. A last minute attack from Trojans might have hurt Bognor's defence but a loose ball came to the hands of try scorer Smith just in time and was promptly hoofed into touch. FT 10-5 to Bognor.
It was a fantastic and hard win for the girls, topping off a brilliant grand-slam and cup winning season in the Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire RFU U16 Girls’ League.