First away fixture brings disappointment

We travelled to our first away league fixture nervous but up for a good friendly game. A total of seven players had never played on a full team before but they all held their own and did an excellent job for their team.

Kick off was at two, the first scrum was awarded, scrum down to Morpeth, both teams bound and set, the ‘ref’ stated “bend and in” not quite sure what to make of this new scrum call the Piranhas lost their first scrum. Not to be disheartened our Captain asked the ref if he would call the scrum according to the RFU so that both teams could legally compete for the ball. And so the game carried on, things were just not going Piranhas way, a couple of missed tackles and Morpeth scored the first try, Mowden took it straight back to the Morpeth team with a hard worked phase of play resulting in our team captain scoring our first try. Some more good phases of play were interrupted by some odd decisions from the man with the whistle, but Mowden Park never let their heads go down much to their credit. Once the ref was informed that handing off was legal the game continued dispite the Piranhas loosing a penalty due to a good hand off by scrum half Lucy Hewitt, Erin Alexander opened her score card to score her first try of the season after some good hands along the line. As half time approached, which the Morpeth coach informed the ref, Morpeth had again won yet another penalty, the player went to kick for touch when the ref pointed out that she should run with it as it was half time if the ball went out of play, the player obeyed her assistant coach with the whistle and so the result was another try to Morpeth. Well done ref!
By now the Piranhas were spitting feathers, together with some questionable tactics in the rucks and mauls and decisions going against them most of the time, passions were flaring. Mowden took the game back at Morpeth winning every scrum awarded to their opposition and scoring another try by Racheal Scott breaking away to score on the left wing, we had some excellent rolling mauls which were mysteriously collapsed? Lucy our scrum half had been battered and ragged around so much that she informed the opposite number what she thought of her, which resulted in another penalty against us!
All in all we should have realised that this was not going to be the game we had hoped for, we have some work to do, we missed tackles which are basic errors but we know what to expect for the return match in Feb. Tries were scored by Capt Mickey Walsh x2, Hooker Erin Alexander and outside centre Racheal Scott. Player of the match goes to Hannah Taylor for her outstanding commitment and for refusing to allow our heads to go down, each and every Piranha played an excellent game of rugby, we can hold our heads up knowing we played a fair, clean game of rugby. Well done girls!