Sunderland Flames 26 - Manchester Ladies 19

This week Manchester Ladies travelled the long journey North to play Sunderland for the first time, with both sides hoping to continue their winning start to the new season. Due to difficulties with the preparation of the pitches at the Sunderland ground, the fixture was played on a pitch at a local venue.

Manchester's backs immediately tried to move the ball around the park, however lack of space on the wings lead to the ball being turned into touch on numerous occasions. The home side had a size advantage in their pack and this was to prove significant in the technical areas as the game developed.

Sunderland recorded the first try ( converted ) after a number of missed tackles in the Manchester defence, with credit due to some very impressive running from the Sunderland number 12. At this point, the try was very much against the balance of play with Manchester dominating the rucks/open play and putting the Sunderland defence under constant pressure.

The pressure from Manchester continued throughout the whole of the first half and eventually resulted in two excellent tries, the first scored by Laura Dudbridge from a rolling maul, the second a team try finished off by Kate Barker (one converted by Suzi Hobday ) to make the score 12-7 to the visitors at halftime.

Manchester quickly increased their lead in the second half with a very good break away try from Kate Bailey straight from kick off ( converted by Suzi Hobday ) to take the score to 19-7 to the Visitors.

The game continued, with both sides seemingly evenly matched, however with injury stoppages for the home side players disrupting the flow of the game, this ultimately had an adverse effect on Manchester’s second half performance.

Following a lack of concentration, Manchester allowed Sunderland back into the game with some poor defence and ball retention at the breakdown. These lapses in the Manchester defence were heavily punished by Sunderland, who scored three tries (two converted) to make the final score 26-19 to the home side.

The pack performed extremely well under pressure in the scrums/lineouts, with a definite improvement following the set pieces last week.
The backs once again attacked the Sunderland defence at every opportunity however were met by some effective defending by the home team.

In a tough, close game between 2 evenly matched teams, we look forward to the return fixture in November.

Forward of the match: Kate Bailey
Back of the match: Jess Johnson