Beckenham Girls rugby Festival 26th October under 18, U5, and U13

The second West Kent Divas Girls rugby festival took place on Sunday 26th October at Becekenham Rugby club and was hugely supported by Aylesford, Ashford, Caterhamians, Cranbrook, Old Alleynians, Pullbourgh Seven Oaks Thanet, Worthing,

At U13, 5 teams of Ashford, Pullborough, Sevenoaks Old Alleynians, and Worthing

Teams played a series of games, and many of the matches were very close, with great team play proving to be the winning formula

At U15, a roumd robins series of games took place between Ashford, Alysford, Pullborough, Thannet / (Barrbarians) WKD.
The first games saw Thannet play Ashford. WKD asked for 3 volenteers, and Oliva, Fiona and Amy put themselves forward. Thannet hugely appreciated the support of 3 experienced players and they where hugely influencianl in their game. Ashford still were to strong for the Thannet Barbarians who were deserved winners. As part of the development prgramme, WKD were supported by asingficant number of Old Alleynians girls some of whom were playing there first competative games. The team who took the feild agaist Aylsford, was a very mixed team and for much of the game WKD were on the defence but the teams resilaince kept them in the game. During the game there were huge perfomances from cery,s sometine taking on the Kent pack single handedly, Ceri making numeros turnovers and Ellie completing a number of leg tackles. From the turn overs, Erin and Elli linked well and when the ball got to Megan there was alway a chance of a score, as it proved and the one score was suffcient to be decisive. It was a tough start, but demonstrated the resiliance and collective will to defend their line.
Next up was WKD, v Thannet Barbars, who were supported by some girls from Ashford Graham juggled the huge squade again, putting out a substantially more expereicnec pack, with developement girls filling spaces in the backs. The game flowed better and there was much more interplay, off loading and a confortable win, again using many players.
Third game was against Pullborough who were supported by Aylsford. Again a simmillar spread of players was jugled by Graham and again a good team performace resulted in a confortable win for WKD.
The 4th round of games were sat out by WKD. Several girls helped Thannet and it was Thanet who took the lead, against form, with a break away solo effort by Baker.
The 5th and final round and last game was against Ashford. To start, an almost complete Old Alleynians back line was put out to start. The game was competative and there was a definate eb and flow to the game but ashford possessed a few devistating runners and missed tackles where punished, without the usual cover defence. At the mid way point, changes were made, with and increased number of WKD players taking to the feild and that enabled the ball to be moved more efficently, even though many girls were out of position, a necessity to include so many new players as possible. The second half performance was sufficent to score 3 trys, for another close win.
At events such as these its cutomary to choose a player of the Festival. On this occession though I want everyone to achkowledge Graham’s performance as coach today. He had an very challenging task, providing game time for all, while looking to put out competative teams.
Weldone WKD