On Sunday, the Penrith Panthers ladies’ rugby union team braved a snowstorm, heading to Fleetwood RUFC for a very cold game.
This started with snow falling, but luckily for the visitors, it didn’t stay long and even the sun came out!
The game started with Fleetwood dominating possession. Every time Penrith got the ball, handling errors gave it straight back to their opponents.
The hosts had a simple but effective game plan, using their size advantage, and after 15 minutes of hammering on the Panthers’ defence they finally broke through to score.
For the next 20 minutes, the game then went back and forth. Panthers started to grow into the contest, gaining some possession. They started to use their pace out wide to gain ground and cause Fleetwood problems.
And the Panthers managed to score two identical tries in six minutes, both coming from penalties and involving the same players. Helena Scullion took the penalties quick and sent the ball down the backline for Josie Scrimgour to finish both moves off. Helena added a conversion onto the second score.
Fleetwood responded straight away with more hard carries to go over and score their second try, making the score 12-10 in the away team’s favour with 15 minutes left.
The game stayed tight with possession again going back and forth. With five minutes remaining, Fleetwood went over to score the final points. With the score finishing 15-12, it really could have gone anyway.
The forward of the match award went to Jenny Brown, normally a centre, who played at blindside flanker due to injuries. It was a position she then made her own with a huge defensive effort, leading the tackling count with fantastic technique.
Back of the match was Josie Scrimgour. As well as scoring a brace of tries, she looked dangerous every time she got the ball, side-stepping players and making ground.
