Millwall Venus XV

29th October 2006

Millwall Venus 15 Hitchin 5

Match report by Jodie Botha

Millwall Tries: Andrea Lendak (2) Toni Cummings (1)

Andrea Lendak, Vicky Lawrence, Carmel Shiel, Sanel Pretorious, Maryke Botha, Rachel Dipper, Toni Cummings, Nicole Buts, Sarah Hills, Claire Higgins, Trudie Clarke, Sally Probett, Jodie Botha

Hoorah! Four games into the season and we have already equalled last seasons best of winning two matches. Hopefully with months left to go we can add some more wins to the tally!

Things started favourably with the extra hour in bed courtesy of the clocks going back. Things went a bit down hill when myself and Dipper got lost on the way there and I realised I must've left my contact lenses in the Ledger on Saturday night. Never mind, I had a spare pair contacts and the ref was confused over the kick off time (not the only confusion he was too suffer that day) so the crises was averted.

The game started well and I was cheered that we'd managed to stop the scoring in the first ten minutes, this had to be a good sign! It was! A spirited chase from Andrea saw her touch a loose ball over the line to make her first try for the day and the club. Buoyed by this piece of good fortune Andrea went on to score another try in the first half after a series of good attacking runs from the backs. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come but they managed some fluid passing – mostly in the first half. Forwards - we are going to have to lift our game and get behind the backs more in future and support their increasingly fancy play.

It worked to our advantage for once to have uncontested scrums as Hitchin certainly had the larger pack. Despite the size advantage we managed to turn every maul to our advantage, our considerable practice in this area finally paying dividends. Unfortunately our rucks left a lot to be desired and we lost a lot of ball in this area needlessly.

Halftime came with an unaccustomed feeling of optimism. More strangely than that, captain Trudie didn't shout or swear at us, someone somewhere must be doing something right! I had no time to ponder this as I hastily shoved sweets down my gullet to stop the alcoholic shakes. The second half began and we were rewarded with another try. This time it was one of our patented fatty forward Venus trys with a lot of running at the opposition on their try line. Eventually Toni seized the initiative and ploughed through a number of players to stretch herself over the line to maintain her points quota. This was all to the dismay of goal hanging Dipper who grumpily told Vicky “leg it” Lawrence off for not passing the ball out to the overlap that Dipper was conveniently on the end of.

Worthy of mention was the majestic return of Nicole who showed what a force she is to be reckoned with again with some punishing runs through the opposition. She was certainly unlucky not to get over the line but I think both teams will pay testament to her superior strength and speed. She could well be the answer to the position of resident powerhouse left by the defection of Miss Snape.

I personally welcome the return to scrum -half from Dipper the dumper. Despite my observing in the first ten minutes or so that she had seemed to forget how to play scrum half, she quickly remembered and put some heavy tackles in (we won't mention her bouncing off the oppositions biggest player though). Trudie also justified the ref's only accurate observation “you still have that small thing that tackles everything that moves” with a few punishing tackles. She was dismayed when one of the opposition fell on one of her kicks and decided to opt not to stand and be walloped by the salivating Trudie, she neatly placed the ball back to set up a ruck, denying Trudie the opportunity to punish her for her impudence of reaching the ball first.

Now we come to the shameful moment of the match. I shan't name her or shame her, she can do that perfectly well for herself but one of our number had a little accident on the pitch. Five minutes before the event she had confided in Dipper that she needed the toilet but thought she could wait. Dipper should have realised we needed the whiz* out of the managers bag but didn't. The poor girl who was underneath the unnamed as someone landed on her bladder causing an involuntary leak would have appreciated the preventive measure as she got up from a soaking giving our culprit a strange look.

Disaster struck with the opposition number 8 taking the ball from the scrum and running the length of the pitch and scoring. It was a frightful moment but as the ref had been doing a superb job of distracting our backs from their duties at the time we can't get too cut up about it.

The journey home was a long one but we managed to keep our spirits up but there might be a bus full of soldiers (2 decks full of suited and booted – I was like a moth to a flame) and a coach load of Granny's on their way back from Blackpool who might have something to say about our festivities in the service station car park. There might also be a bulletin in Stratford about someone getting their “brownie” out but that as they say is another story!

* Whiz - an item used by Venus players to facilitate relieving oneself of urine while on long bus journeys – generally into a previously emptied can (or three) of cider.

Click here to read the match reports from last season