Torrent of tries in U18 victory
Stirling County blasted past an Edinburgh Harlequins side for the fourth time this season to win the National Under 18s Girls Cup.
Tries by Nicole Flynn and Nathalie Roy inside the first four minutes set County up and despite Harlequins responding with a try of their own, scored four more tries through Tessia Smyth, player-of-the-match Maia Macdonald, Chloe Brown and Hannah Walker made it 38-5 at the break.
County continued to dominate in the second half with Ceitidh Ainsworth, Macdonald again and Jessica Orr-ewing all finding their way to the try-line, but
Harlequins kept plugging away and finally got the reward that their perseverance thoroughly deserved with a late score.
Walker and Flynn each claimed their second tries for County before the end to polish off a comprehensive win.
Head coach Mark Ainsworth explained that the on-going success of the girls section at Stirling is down to the culture created by the players.
“This is great end to what has been a hard year for us, as it has been for every rugby side, trying to get back up and running after Covid,”he said.
“They’ve missed almost two years, which is bad, but the plus side is that they have all been consistently coming to training and it has given them the chance to work on stuff which we might not have had the chance to do if we were bouncing from game to game and dealing with the things which come up on a weekly basis. So, in that sense, I believe it has helped them develop their whole game a little bit better.”
“I don’t know the exact numbers but it is approximately half and half with this squad moving up to women’s rugby or staying at under-18. So, that means we’ll have a really good core at under-18 next year, and I don’t envisage any of the girls moving up being lost to the game, whether they carry on playing at this club, another club, or at university.”
Stirling County: H Walker©; N Roy, L Macrae, F Maccoll, N Flynn; C Ainsworth, B Henderson; C Brown, A Sutcliffe, N Mcewan, E Quigley, C Russell, T Smith, K Macdonald, M Macdonald. Subs: J Blair, L Roy, E Fleming, R Davies, J Orr-ewing, C Gilmour.