Sidmouth Under-15 girls were mighty impressive winners as they chalked up a 17-10 success on their visit to Winscombe.

Conditions were challenging for both teams as it was wet and that made both surface and ball slippery, but the girls shrugged off such problems and moved the ball about well across the pitch.

An impressive feature of the Sidmouth performance was the way that the forwards played a confident game, controlling the ball well, particularly when under considerable pressure from the big Winscombe forwards.

Abbie French had an amazing game at hooker, winning the ball on a regular basis and she got great support from Holly Hales and Abi Hext, the pair dominating the scrums at second row and both also got well and truly stuck into the mauls and rucks with strong tackling.

Annabelle Bird, Lucy Moore and Ellie Wood took turns in the roles of flanker and second row, both made some bold attacking runs, making good ground and Ellie also dived in well to secure loose ball which constantly gave Sidmouth possession.

Ellie Wood also operated for the first time as a line-out catcher, a role she did with aplomb, getting good ball into the hands of the Sidmouth scrum half.

Cleo Turley, at number eight, again impressed with her strong tackling, sharp rucking and she was also very quick to get back into the game and contest the ball, often winning the possession for Sidmouth, and she was rewarded for her fine contribution with one of the tries.

Lucy Tanner, Minty May and Daisy Grove mixing it up at scrum half, fly-half, and inside centre respectively, creating a solid foundation, linking the forwards’ and coordinating the backs’ attack and defence against the agile Winscombe backs.

With strong piercing runs and perfectly timed offloads, outside centre Amber Coombes was able to wreak havoc on the home defensive back line, opening up the field for skilful attacking moves from the Sidmouth forwards and backs, particularly from fleet-footed, and nimble, winger Bella Breen.

Keeping the inside wing well and truly covered, was Anya Gosal, who didn’t hold back with very lively attack and courageous tackling in defence thwarting the opposition wing.

At full-back Hatty Tremlett showed fantastic fitness with determined support when Sidmouth attack and defence needed it the most and she also scored two of her teams tries and also, on more than one occasion, foiled Winscombe attacks with technically excellent try-saving tackles.

This coming Sunday (November 11), the Under-15 girls play a cup match against Exeter with the fixture taking place at the Sidford training pitches. Kick-off is at 2pm and all support will be made very welcome.

If you are a girl and want to play rugby or know someone who does please contact the Sidmouth RFC at girlsadmin@sidmouthrfc.co.uk.

The club has a good bunch of girls already playing rugby fro the age of seven upwards. It all starts as mixed rugby up to under 12’s before developing into full girls rugby with teams currently fielded at Under-13, Under-15 and Under-18.