Last Wednesday, January 29th, our girl's rugby squad were invited to attend a blitz at Ashbourne RFC. The blitz was organised by Sophie Spence of Leinster Rugby and featured girls from Ashbourne and Ratoath Community Schools, as well as Firhouse Community College and ourselves. Our squad of Katie McGowan (captain), Jojo Clune, Cliodna Edwards, Roisin Tisdall, Rebekah Hayden, Sorcha Kampff, Chloe Hutchinson, Sinead Aspell, Eva Keller and Jessica Keating took to the field against a very strong Ashbourne/Ratoath combined team. Their play off set-pieces was very strong and they had some extremely strong ball-carriers who were able to break through our tackles. Within the first minute of the game they were already five points up on us. We were rusty and needed some time to get our skills back up to speed. The opposition were up-to-speed though and extended their lead. At half-time we were down twenty-to-five.
 |
| Ashbourne/Ratoath attacking off a lineout |
We managed to score a couple of consolation trys in the second half but we also leaked another. There was a definite improvement in our technique however, and we were returning to our usual strong attacking form.
Our next match saw us taking on our old rivals and friends Firhouse Community College. We blitzed Firhouse and pushed into a strong lead very quickly. Katie was a tackle machine, single-handedly blocking probing attacks from Firhouse. This helped establish our platform for attack, allowing Jojo Clune to score a hat-trick, while Jess scored two, Katie, Sinead and Roisin scoring also. The rustiness we had shown early in the first half against Ashbourne/Ratoath was well gone, and we were enjoying our rugby.
