A win for our wounded warrior

With the call to start strongly still ringing in our ears, Novos were rocked by influential centre Emma Nichol casually announcing that she had broken her leg after about 2 mins played. As she manned up superbly, looked after by Mr Willis, play was moved to the adjacent pitch.

A quick reshuffle of the back line saw Fanny Fouin move to inside centre, Rachael "Flemdog" Bass to outside centre, Sam "twinkle toes" West to Full Back and Caitlin Morrell to the wing.

Eccles restarted strongly and were soon putting pressure on the Novos defence, with their forwards running hard, but the line held strong. The line speed of the backs in defence caused the Eccles centre to juggle the ball straight into the hands of Fanny, who raced in for the first try. A lack of kicking tee meant Sedge had to drop kick the conversion, which unfortunately missed the mark, leaving the score at 0-5.

Eccles came straight back from the kick off, and made ground up into the 22. With Novos scrambling back, they gave away a penalty, which was taken quickly. Before Novos had reacted fully, the centre had crashed over the try line, and with a successful conversion, the score was 7-5.

Play continued at 100 miles an hour, with the referee appearing to let anything go at the breakdown. The forwards were working hard trying to turnover ball and were rewarded with a penalty, which Novos opted to kick. Magic stepped up, but was just short. From the 22 drop out, Novos regained possession and with a couple of forward drives, sucked in the Eccles defence, and Sedge spun a pass out wide to Caitlin Morrell, who raced down the wing to score in the corner. Conversion missed, making the score 7-10.

2 minutes later, there was an action replay, with Caitlin sprinting down the touch line to score again. Again, the conversion was missed and Novos went into half time with the score 7-15.

With Ian's half time talk of "winning for Emma" Novos set to the task, but Eccles picked up the pace, and with some effective forward drives were over the try line. An excellent conversion took the score to 14-15.

Novos brought the subs on, and the fresh legs made a difference immediately. After some lovely footwork from Sam West, which gave her half a break, Janey was on her shoulder to take the offload and score under the posts. The conversion by Magic took the score to 14-22. With 6 mins left on the clock Novos were hoping to look for a bonus point try, but unfortunately it was Eccles who hit back with a try out wide. Another excellent conversion took the score to 21-22.

As the ref called 2 mins left, Novos kicked off determined to keep hold of the lead. The kick didn't go 10, so Eccles were awarded a scrum on the half way line. Some desperate defence followed, with Novos bundling the winger in touch. From the line out with a clean catch, Novos set up a maul, and drove up the pitch, keeping the ball in for as long as possible. When it was eventually brought down, Sedge kicked the ball out, and the ref blew the final whistle to the relief of the whole Novos team.