The U18 Girls match reports will have an obvious bias as I’m helping coach Larne Ladies. First season at it, still to do my Coaching cert’s but hey – I know everything there is to know about the Women’s game in Ireland (that was sarcasm just so we’re all clear  😆 ) so how hard could it be? Well, goodness me, it is hard – coaching being the smallest part of getting a team out on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Regular readers will be aware of our leading coverage of Women’s Rugby in Ireland but, I must say that, covering the game from the other side of the lens has been much more challenging than I originally thought it would be. I certainly have a new found respect and admiration for those uncelebrated members of clubs throughout Ireland that keep the this great game of ours running on and off the pitch. Heros one and all.

So, we are two games into the season and we’ve yet to record a win. A narrow defeat, by one try in eleven, away to Armagh, was followed up this weekend with a thorough working over by Monaghan at home.

This new league has it’s challenges, with only four out of the six fixtures to date in the league fulfilled. Thankfully we’ve managed to field in both our U18 games so far but with the players moving up en-mass from our U15’s programme we are going to struggle there throughout the season so a major recruitment drive will be underway shortly.

As for the game? It was played as 11 aside and Monaghan got on the scoreboard first with a converted try. Larne hit back with tries from Rachael Livingstone and Toni Macartney to take a 10 – 7 lead about 15 minutes in. Unfortunately, after that the experienced Monaghan side, featuring Ulster U18’s players Ella Garland, Kelly McCormill and Lucinda Kinghan, cut loose to rack up a further ten tries throughout the game.

A hard lesson, but we’ll start working on it tonight. Bring on next week’s game.

Big thanks to Ian Humes Photography for covering this one as I was otherwise engaged.

GALLERY BELOW