Winning is easy for Women’s Rugby

Imperial Women’s Rugby has seen a fantastic start to their 2012-2013 season, winning their first three games with impressive margins. The success began even before the matches started, with a strong turnout for Fresher’s Fair and our taster session, which says a lot about the effectiveness of certain team members enticing freshers to the stall through the medium of dance! Our large intake this year sees a range of talent, from those who have played competitively before to those who had never even picked up a rugby ball before this year but all show great potential and enthusiasm for the game. With a new team assembled, it wasn’t long before our first game of the year – a friendly away at Oxford University. This game set the tone for the season to follow with a great turnout of the new members, with Carolanne Vouriot scoring our first try of the year! Oxford put forward a largely Fresher opposition but this provided a great opportunity for those who hadn’t played before to experience the often chaotic world of rugby against a more evenly-matched side. Our new girls took to the challenge with admirable panache and enthusiasm whilst our senior members led by example. 80 minutes later and Imperial stood slightly muddy and probably fairly bruised, but victorious with a full-time score of 31-10. Kudos to our men of the match – newcomer Juliet Lennon and last year’s captain Kath Fok!

Not content with this single success, Imperial took to the field a week later to begin their London Universities Sports Leagues (LUSL) campaign against Royal Holloway at Harlington. This match required much more serious game faces due to the presence of several very experienced players on Holloway’s side, but Imperial were not deterred. A strong message was sent out by Imperial’s solid defence which managed to hold off the opposition for the entire first half whilst simultaneously racking up tries aplenty from old and new members alike. This try bonanza continued on into the second half, though it was met with greater resistance from a reinvigorated Royal Holloway who managed to break through to set up a try and conversion which we allowed out of respect and extreme politeness. By the final whistle Imperial had clocked a massive 58-7 win and were celebrating in the appropriate fashion (i.e. a cheeky pint down the pub). Congratulations go to our men of the match: Ran Xiong, for her notable double try and all round gusto, and Carolanne Vouriot for making consistently awesome tackles and some really solid runs!

With a desire to keep the winning streak live, Imperial approached Kingston University with caution on the 4th November as the opponents were a relatively new team of unknown skill. Despite this, the teams faced off with Imperial leading from the front despite freezing conditions and uncontested scrums from the first five minutes, which provided a disadvantage as our scrum usually delivers knock out performances. However, we made up for this in our line-outs which were consistently effective for our own throw-ins and often during our opponents as well! With a season’s best score of 67-0 to Imperial, Lucy Olliff and Juliet Lennon were richly rewarded as men of the match – Lucy for her all-round solid commitment on the pitch and Juliet for her amazing line-out prowess despite never having been lifted before. Special honours should go to Caitlin Jackson who pulled off a hat trick of tries within the space of a single half and Lana Lee who successfully converted the majority of tries and who also scored a try on switching from hooker to fly-half due to injuries in the team.

Imperial have certainly started the season on the best possible terms and though there are potentially some tough matches yet to come, we’re confident we can build on the success we had last year (winning the BUCS SE conference cup and finishing second in our division) and more recently in order to achieve our best season yet. If all of this sounds right up your street and you love rolling in the mud, it’s never too late to join us!