Last weekend saw our U9 Warlingham Wildcats team travel to Ashford RFC for an all-girls festival, reports team coach Aoife Cunningham.

The sun has finally come out and it shone brightly at Ashford RFC as girls rugby was truly alive and kicking at this all-girls festival! The morning started with a huge group shot of all the amazing girls that were taking part - a sight that truly showed the rise of the game among women and girls, no doubt fuelled by the success of the Red Roses.

Warlingham had only five of our ten U9 girls take part due to prior commitments. Luckily, we managed to borrow girls from Trinity and Dorking, and in true rugby style they were welcomed with open arms - treated like any other team member.

The girls played four matches against Ashford, Folkestone, Dartfordians and Reeds/Dover/Canterbury. The girls settled-in quickly and cracked on with the job at hand. There was some fantastic rugby played, with runaway tries, solid defence, superb tackling and great teamwork. It was amazing to see how the two borrowed girls just slotted in, as if they'd played with Warly before.

As a team they had great performances with Riva and Darcy on form as the tackling duo no team wanted to face. They both had some excellent runaway and team tries. Abbie controlled in the centre, running into tackles to draw the opposition defence and create space for others. Harper really came into her own, dominating on the wing with great pace and a lovely side step to run a try over the line. There was some stand out play from Saoirse running into the tackles and making some good tackles too. Leila from Trinity made some great tackles and stepped up in the attack. Lauren from Dorking made some great runs on the wing and went over the line to score in the corner.

It was a perfect day for rugby and the coaching team and parents were very proud of all the girls. They are now looking forward to the club’s girls/ladies day this Sunday with a full squad.