Women's NC 3 South West: Ashley Down Ladies 28-41 Chard

ASHLEY Down Ladies hosted their Chard counterparts last week and both teams produced a hard fought open game of rugby that was a credit to both sides.

From the kick off, Chard pressured the home defence and from a scrum, Georgie Waite made a break down the blind side, then fed the backs who quickly offloaded in the tackle to release wing Ellie Fowler to open the scoring. Converted by Georgia Adams.

After the opening try, injuries and reduced numbers meant the game then started to open up,.

The hosts pulled a try back to level the scores before Jas Rowe scored down the win to put Chard back in front.

Once again the home side came back and forced the visitors back in their 22 before Charlie Taylor scored to send Chard in front, 17-7.

But the hosts finished the half strong and scored once again to leave the score at 14-17 at half time.

The home sides strong finish to the first half was mirrored in their start to the second. From the kick off, the Ashley backs showed their class by outpacing the cover defence for full back James to score her second to the left of the posts. With once again an excellent conversion, the home side were ahead for the first time at 21-17.

From this point, Chard had a golden period of 15 mins where strong tackling and rapid release of the backs meant that they took a grip of the game.

Fowler scored her second to bring Chard back into the lead, then number 8 Tia Shoemark who had a really strong match, made a break and fed the backs once again for Taylor to outpace the defence to score. 

Fowler completed her hattrick in the 55th minute and after another successful conversion Chard were up, 21-36.

With 8 minutes to go, and Ashley never taking a step backwards in their attempts to get back in the game, a loose ball from a scrum on home sides 22, saw the alert Fowler claiming the ball on the ground and in same movement feeding to Taylor who again used her pace to claim her hat trick also.

Finally, scrum half Jemma Takel breached the defence to score under the posts. With a fourth conversion by Pattynama, who was impeccable with 100% kicking success, this took the final score to 28 - 41 in the visitor's favour.

For the Chard RFC Men's team, they had a week off last weekend but return to action this Saturday when they host Sidmouth RFC.

That match kicks off at 2pm while the Chard 2nd XV travel to play Tor 2nds also at 2 pm.