BRISBANE Irish Women’s - Round Robin against Wests, Sunnybank & Souths
BIWRU v Wests
Co-captain Sonyah Badcock signaled her intentions early in the game and set the tone for the Irish girls with two bruising hits in defence on the opposition. This fired up our girls, who started playing the game with an astonishing confidence in defence and attack,demonstrated by a break in the fourth minute by our brave fly half Claudia Finney. Wests scored the first try of the game close to half time. New player, hooker Cherie Hawkins seemed to draw confidence from the positive start aiming up in defence and finding space around the ruck. Speedster Kate Plimmer scored straight after the Wests try and just before half time. Plimmer tore up sideline with her blistering speed after the backline got the ball to her. Although Wests came back after half time intent on ruining the party, our ladies still stood up and fought for the ball.
BIWRU v Sunnybank
The sunnybank ladies were too experienced and played their way to a full time score of 31-0 utilising their touch backgrounds and skills. In this game however ‘a star was born’ in Breanna Nibbs breaking the sunnybank line and gaining confidence.
Confidence which Nibbs took through to the Souths game where she featured in numerous line breaks, scoring her for the Irish. It was during this game that the Irish clawed their form back to how they played the first half against Wests. Tackling, sticking to their structure and believing in themselves. Finney finalizing the score line for Irish 10 against Souths 5. UP THE IRISH!
Irish Players finishing up the night with the CLUB song and a few beers to celebrate their first win and most improved players:
Claudia Finney
Breanna Nibbs
Meg McAlernon
Anna Cryan
Cherie Hawkins
Huge thanks for BIRFC President John Dalle-Cort and everyone who helped to get the field ready and bar open!
Normanby Cup Round 5: Souths vs Brisbane Irish
Coming off a narrow loss at home to Ipswich the week before, the Irish traveled to Annerley last Friday night to take on Souths. Irish started strong with a try from out half and new recruit Mark Ormiston. The Irish had to deal with a very strong and fast Souths back three and couldn’t hold them out for much longer when Souths scored and converted just before half time. This was a tight affair and both sides’ discipline needed to be good on the night. Irish managed to get a penalty in front of the post which Ormiston slotted over to make it 7-8 to Irish. Souths got in for another try with 10mins to go and converted, but the Irish never gave up. With 5mins to play, the Irish got themselves into good position with some strong carries from captain Rocko Rikini, Ash Naughton and substitute Nick Leggat got the Irish close to the line. With a minute to go Ollie Bastable dived in for the try close to the posts. Ormiston kick the conversion for the win to leave the final score Souths 14 Brisbane Irish 15. Next up is away to Riverside Rebels this Friday night, 7.45pm
321s for the night went to:
William Read
Ash Naughton
Rocko Rikini
Pegg Cup Round 5: Ipswich vs Brisbane Irish
Last Saturday saw Leaders Brisbane Irish take on second place Ipswich at Ipswich. Neither side had lost a game leading up to this so a tough game was on the cards. Ipswich started the better and put some good phases together to get them in for the first try of the game and converted 7-0 to Ipswich.
Ipswich scored again off Irish mistakes to make it 14-0 to the home side. Irish kicked into gear straight after this and played most of the second half in the Ipswich half. Some great runs out wide from Brock McGarity, Tom Benham and Matt Smith saw the Irish set themselves up for 3 tries before half time to make the score -17-24 to the Irish.
It was much more of the same in the second half with the Irish forwards starting to dominate the game also which aloud the backs run in for a few more scores. Special mentions to Centre Matt Smith who ran in four tries on the day and the Irish Number 7 - Will Jones who was everywhere on Saturday and was a handful for the home side to deal with.
Final score: Ipswich 20 Brisbane Irish 47
Next for the Irish is away to North Lakes
321s for the day went to:
Greig Munro
Matt Smith
Will Jones