The Warly Witches, our flourishing U9s all-girl team travelled to Esher, for their first festival outing as an all-girls side since Dorking at the end of last season. This time, instead of tagging the opposition they were tackling them! Here with his notes is Adam Searle:

The girls put on an amazing show, putting in some hard tackles and taking some too. We saw a great exhibition of straight line running up the pitch and brushing off the incoming tackles, along with the girls drawing in the other team’s defence before using fast runners to score tries.

Defensive lines were well held, and all the training back at home paid off, the girls made several tackles taking their opposition into touch and only a few try saving tackles had to be made. With three new girls joining the team for their first outing, it was great to see Arabella, Georgia and Harper run the ball in for at least one try each and get stuck in making tackles.

With a team of only 8 girls and playing 7 aside everyone had to put in a hard shift, and the girls did just that, holding their own, keeping their heads up, never wavering from the task in hand, and leaving everything out on the pitch.

As a coach and parent of the Witches I could not be prouder of the rugby on display or the team ethos, the girls helped and encouraged each other as team mates when it was needed. I’m sure this is a sentiment echoed by all the coaches and parents of this Warlingham Witches girls side - bring on the next game!