Australian Services beat the Combined Services 24-12 in an excellent encounter at Caerphilly RFC. It brings their tour to an end where they remained unbeaten.
Combined Services opened the scoring through the Army’s England International, Jane Leonard, playing not in her familiar openside role but at scrum half converted by Navy fullback Sam Alderson. However the Aussie Warriors replied through their ever industrious openside Rebekah ‘Bits’ Allen and also score an important try just before half time again through Bits when she first grounded the ball against the padding of the upright before reaching out and making the goal line. This second try was converted by Hayley Sullivan for a 12-7 halftime lead.
The second half followed the pattern of the first. The Combined Services exerted the early pressure and scored a well taken and deserved try right wing Danny Phan but Sam could not convert. With the match in the balance the Australian half backs became more influential and started to mix the play up. It wasn’t long before the powerful running they had shown all afternoon broke the deadlock as outside centre Alisha Hewitt powered over for their third try. With the conversion missed they were 17-12 up as the game entered its last fifteen minutes.
The next couple of minutes proved to be decisive as from the restart the Warriors moved the ball quickly to the left and Brea Grant screamed in from the halfway line to seemingly put the match beyond doubt. The conversion making it 24-12 and only twelve minutes to go.
The Combined Services through everything they could had the Aussies who defended for their lives and held on to be deserved match winners. They completed a Grand Slam of wins against the RAF(W), RN(W), the BRitish Army(W) and finally Combined Services Women.
More images and full report to follow.
One Response
John Walton
Sadly all good things come to an end.
I have really enjoyed watching the Australian Services Women’s Rugby touring side.
They rightly return home unbeaten having had a great time.
Your work with them has certainly added to their tour.
Hopefully they will be back again in acouple of years