For those of us (like myself) eagerly anticipating the Champions League tonight, the Rugby at Bournbrook served up a delicious appetiser. The game was won in the first half. It started with a dominant Leicester pack setting up beautiful driving mauls from line outs and dominating at the scrum. The first try came from a powerful run from the opposition’s Number 8 who bounced off three or four tackles before putting the ball down in the corner. After the resultant conversion was, perhaps controversially, ruled a miss the game turned on its head. Leicester’s big tight head prop and power house went off injured and from then on Birmingham began to win the line outs and scrums that had proved up to now their weakness. Birmingham, for the first time, manged to turn over a scrum and then step forward Zoe Bennio with a B…E…A…UTIUL run, with a few dummies thrown in, saw a Leicester defence mesmerized and cut to pieces. Sharifa Clark went over from this move under the posts leading to a conversion from Jamie North. Birmingham’s dominance continued as they added two more tries before the half time whistle.
The second half descended into a try feast. The pick of the many was a lovely run and pass from Zoe Bennion to the winger Jemma Waynard. A lovely drop of the shoulder allowed her to finish calmly under the posts. Sharifa Clark also scored another great try with just an amazingly fast, powerful run which took the whole Leicester defence out of the game. Meanwhile Leicester scored a handful of tries themselves thanks to their power upfront (in particular their Number 8 who grabbed at least three). So manic was the second half that a crowd swarmed the ref at the end (including myself) to ask what the final score actually was. It ended 43-32 with 7 tries to Birmingham and 6 to Leicester. Credit to Zoe Bennion and Jamie North who’s kicking meant sure Birmingham were always an arm’s length ahead.
1st XV Womans Rugby Union vs University of Leicester by Burnfm_Sport on Mixcloud
