Millwall Venus XV

1st April 2007

Millwall Venus 5 Hertford 65

Millwall Try: Trudie Clarke

Having had insider information that the Hertford were out to celebrate their promotion it was never going to be an easy game. The only bright star being myself getting restored to the number 2 jersey, having done my time at scrumhalf.

We began, however, rather dispiritedly and although we started off well and made it difficult to score for the opposition we didn't seem to have all that much heart in it, which was a real shame given the amount of support we have been getting in recent weeks (many thanks to all who have supported and contributed throughout the season). Having learnt our lesson from the previous encounter, still fresh in our minds, we did our best to close down their nippy winger. Yes she did score but certainly in the first half she had to come back in field to do it, it wasn't a simple case of running straight down the wing. A notable improvement for us.

Feeling dismayed at our lack of enthusiasm I began to do what I do best and that is shout at other people. Fortunately I was rewarded when Vicky “apple turnover” Lawrence opened up her normally taped shut ears and pushed the ball out discreetly from the breakdown where I was waiting to pop it out. I had rehearsed the miss pass in my head a number of times over the course of the week. It may have been better had I rehearsed it with my team mates as the ball flew out to inside centre, confusing the fly half who'd not come across such devilish trickery before. Luckily Trudie, who has seen such witch craft before snatched the ball and ran for the try line. It seemed like destiny and I swear I could hear the “chariots of fire” tune in my head. I felt buoyed by this bit of magic and think that we could have come back from that, but sadly, as the score line indicates, we didn't.

Constantly hampered by injuries (Nicole should have stayed off) we just couldn't get it together and try's quickly followed. As the ever wise first team flankers commented in their in-depth analysis of what went wrong, the defence was the weak point, not sure if our score lines tipped them off or if they actually paid attention when shouting helpful things such as “kill”.

Lindsey “wuss” Henshall put in another good performance, there's no getting around it, as well as being better on the roller blades than me she is also turning into a fair rugby player. Newcomer Christie also put in a good effort, anyone who asks me to tell them what to do (on or off the pitch) can be my friend. It' saves me having to break their spirit first.

Special mention goes to Vicky and Nicole for their april fools efforts on the team manager. I was even fooled by Vicky's realistic impression of turning up drunk to the meet. To be fair she has turned up to training slightly inebriated in the past so it was a very believable joke.

Click here to read the match reports from last season