Worthing 10's

A brave performance from a depleted under 18 girls team saw them come up just short in the prestigious Worthing 10s competition this weekend. The Worthing 10s is the premier end of season tournament for girls rugby stretching over two gruelling days and attracting the best girls teams from the south of England.

Injuries, work commitments and exam preparation meant that the girls had to play the first day of the tournament with just the bare 10 players. Drawn in a group of 5 teams they had to play back to back matches without replacements on Saturday afternoon. The girls were magnificent, beating Old Alleynians, Rochford, Medway and finally Old Albanians to top their group and advance to the Cup Quarter Finals. They finished the day with an impressive total of 21 tries scored and only 1 conceded. The try scorers on day one were:

Ava Seymour 5
Cerys Ralph 5
Alicia Maude 4
Jazz Rampton 4
Dayna Strongman 2
Amber Collins 1
Alicia Maude also impressively drop-kick converted 15 of those tries.

Day two dawned and the girls were joined by 2 much needed reinforcements before their Quarter final match against Welwyn. It was clear that the girls were struggling from their exertions on day one and quickly conceded two early tries to a slick Welwyn side. The girls dug deep though and three unanswered tries for Ellingham from Cerys Ralph, Ava Seymour and Alicia Maude and a single conversion saw them home and into the Cup Semi-Final against all the odds.

The Semi-Final saw them pitched against a combination of Dorset County players clustered together under the Dorchester banner and who had a large squad of players at their disposal. Ultimately this proved a step too far for our girls, who, with injuries were back to a bare 10 players. The girls lost 17-7 with Ellingham’s try being scored by Jaz Rampton and converted by Alicia Maude.

That left the girls having to summon one last effort of the season for the third placed play off against old rivals, Old Albanians. Once again we made things hard by conceding an early try, as fatigue was clearly effecting the girls. However they again fought back bravely and a rare try from prop forward Beth Stevens followed by a further try and conversion from Alicia Maude saw Ellingham win the game and claim third place overall.

So the Ellingham u18 girls finish the season strongly even though they didn’t quite manage to win the tournament against the odds. However the season should still be seen as a huge success as the team have won the majority of their games even though silverware has just eluded them as the team also narrowly lost in the semi finals of the RFU cup.

On an individual basis our u18 girls saw the selection of 10 players for Hampshire County, 3 nominated for the RFU Centre of Excellence programme to join the 2 girls we already have there and 1 player who has progressed to the England u18 Talent Development Squad.
Finally the end of the season sees a changing of the guard as both Jess Fullbrook and Cerys Ralph have played their final games for the u18s as they now progress to adult rugby. In addition Head Coach Colin Searle steps down after 10 years of coaching both boys and girls rugby at Ellingham.

Squad
1. Jess Fullbrook
2. Leah Rogers
3. Amber Collins
4. Casey Vines
5. Ava Seymour (Capt.)
6. Alicia Maude
7. Jaz Rampton
8. Dayna Strongman
9. Ami Dear
10. Cerys Ralph
11. Katie Jenkins (Sunday)
12. Beth Stevens (Sunday)