Written by Tony Mead

The U14 girls made a belated start to the season on Sunday against Medway who saw just how strong our girls can be given space on the full St Mary's pitch.

Too many highlights to mention them all and despite the brilliant individual tries and strong forward drives, Medway still caused us trouble with their structured forward play.

A rusty first 10 mins saw a couple of mistakes possibly due to nerves and excitement but after that good handling from the Dart's girls utilized the full width of the pitch to run in multiple tries. Brilliant runs from Amelia, Sophie, Lilly-Mae & Izzy P put the opposition forwards on the back foot allowing the backs to get clean ball. Freya, Lucy & Elizabeth managed to fly through and around the opposition backs and Anna was starting to impose herself at fly half. The rest of the team worked hard around the pitch and at the breakdown allowing us to have the majority of possession. The forward pack of Lilly-Mae, Molly, Maisie, Talia and Bessie fought hard defensively. The always solid Evie was joined by Aimee (who was making her debut, not that you could tell) in the second row. Scrum halves Aoife and Elisse barely put a foot wrong all game and their distribution was superb. The backs of Anna, Lucy, Freya, Elyse, Eleanor and Elizabeth, later joined by Belle, Lillie, Joanie were interchanging at various times yet the level of performance remained the same.

Credit to Medway who never gave up and we know from their Waterfall performances last year, can cause any team a problem on their day.

Thankfully for us this was Darts day!

Scorers - Tries, Freya x3, Elizabeth x2, Amelia x2, Joanie x2, Izzy, Lucy, Anna & Belle
Conversion, Joanie

Forward of the match award went to Molly for her hard work all over the pitch.
Back of the match award went to hat-trick hero Freya (who owes the rest of the team a jug of Lucozade)

Final score Darts 67-10 Medway