July 6, 2016
England Beats France With Last Minute Try at Women’s Rugby Super Series
Photo: The Rugby Channel
Doug Coil
England emerged with a 17-13 win against France with a last minute try in the second round of the Women’s Rugby Super Series. Both teams are 1-1 as England lost 52-17 against Canada and France won 19-13 against the USA Women’s Eagles in the first round.
The third and final round takes place on Saturday July 9th. France will play Canada at 1pm MT and England will play the USA at 3pm MT. Both of Saturday’s Super Series matches will be broadcast live on The Rugby Channel.
The story of the match was the multiple attacking possession by England with numerous handling errors and a staunch defense by France that kept the match close.
With France playing into a strong wind, a Camille Boubaud penalty kick gave France an early 3-0 lead at the 11th minute. She then added another at the 29th minute to lead 6-0.
Shortly after, England went on the attack with stong runs by Alex Matthews and Sarah Hunter and with a penalty by France, Amber Reed narrowed the lead to 6-3 with a penalty kick. This is the way the score would stay at halftime.
At the 52nd minute, Ceri Large dummied and cut inside for the first try of the match. Reed converted and England had its first lead of the match, 10-6.
France regained the lead 13-10 in the 70th minute after a 5 meter scrum and several picks and goes resulted in a Romane Menager try and Boudaud conversion.
England unleashed a final attack where they elected a lineout at 5 meters. After the ensuing maul, three picks and goes resulted in the ball being held up. France was issued a yellow card so play continued. That was enough for England as Zoe Aldcroft went in for the winning try. Once again Amber Reed converted and England escaped with a 17-13 win.
“Handling errors cost them at key moments in the first half, but the ball carrying of Alex Matthews, Sarah Hunter, Tamara Taylor and Harriet Millar-Mills was immense throughout and ultimately gave England the go-forward ball needed to win this contest.”
Lead coach Scott Bemand said: “That was another typically tough test against the French. Every time we play them, these are genuinely physical and hard matches.”
“Perhaps we would have liked to have seen a bit more on the scoreboard but fair play to the French, they defended well and got us under pressure when they went ahead with 10 minutes to go. The character in our group of players, and how they came back from the result against Canada, to keep playing to the death, shows that they understand how to win these international matches.”
Amber Reed,Player of the Match said, “We were obviously disappointed with how we played last Friday against Canada, and we had a bit of a bone to pick with France coming off the back of the Six Nations.”
“So we’re really happy with our performance and how we bounced back as a squad. I think we just had to try and dominate the game up front. We let Canada impose themselves on us last Friday night which is where we fell behind.
“So as a team we were looking to go forward a lot more, and my job is a lot easier when I’ve got a nice platform to play off and my backs are talking to me all game long.
“The USA will pose a totally different challenge. We know they will come at us hard but we’ve just got to look at ourselves and how we play, build our structure, and how we want to characterise ourselves as a team.”
England: 1. Rochelle Clark 2. Amy Cokayne 3. Laura Keates 4. Harriet Millar-Mills 5. Tamara Taylor 6. Alex Matthews 7. Poppy Leitch 8. Sarah Hunter (c) 9. La Toya Mason 10. Amber Reed 11. Katie Mason 12. Ceri Large 13. Lauren Cattell 14. Lydia Thompson 15. Fiona Pocock 16. Lark Davies 17. Vickii Cornborough 18. Sarah Bern 19. Zoe Aldcroft 20. Izzy Noel-Smith 21. Leanne Riley 22. Millie Wood 23. Lotte Clapp
France: 1 Dhia Maylis Traore 2 Manon Bigot 3 Patricia Carricaburu 4 Manon Andre 5 Audrey Forlani 6 Pauline Soulard 7 Virginia Griere 8 Safi N’Diaye (c) 9 Yanna Rivoalen 10 Camille Imart 11 Caroline Boujard 12 Camille Boudaud 13 Elodie Puublan 14 Camile Cabalou 15 Laura Delas 16 Agathe Sochat 17 Laure Clermidy 18 Emile Mathieu 19 Romane Menager 20 Yanna Rivoalen 21 Carla Neissen 22 Audrey Abadie 23 Julie Duval
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