Hammers Women’s 2s don’t stop fighting against strong Oxford Quinns

On a glorious Sunday that can only be described to be in direct contrast with the tsunami of last week, Hammers arrived in oxford to take on the 4th in the league. The main shock of the day: they play on 4G (and we all know how we love 4G 😂).

Oxford were a very good outfit but Hammers got stuck in from the off camping out in Oxford’s half for the 1st 10 mins. Oxford ran in the first try with a break down the wing but Hammers struck back with some heavy forward carries and a reaching score by Whylie under the posts! After a few more big collisions it became apparent we were not big fans of the surface, preferring the slip-slidey conditions of Lake Hurlingham to the friction burn of 4G – home is where the heart (and mud) is 😁.

A few more break from Oxford saw them put a barrage of tries on us but Hammers stayed in the fight and managing to score one more of our own. A few early injuries and the loss of Tara at 10 saw us lose a bit of the shape and structure we’ve been working so hard on but we go again (Shout out ambulance teams in Oxford who arrived before the ref had even finished talking to the dispatch team on the phone, veryyy impressive stuff).

There is always something to be learnt from games like this, Oxford’s support play, offloading, speed at the ruck was brilliant and we can definitely look to work on that in our game but perhaps most importantly was the heart and focus you girls showed all game even after we had a player (captain and 10 no less) go off in an ambulance was something to be admired ❤️

Final score – 86-12

Forward of the match – Irene: The front row who absolutely LOVES a tap and go. Made huge tackles, huge carries and always the first in support of all quick pens. Also played all 3 front row positions on the day 😄 Special mention Natasha for some truly epic tackles!!

Back of the match – Lucy Ward: Played about 3 different positions in the game and made try saving tackles all over the place you absolute hero!