The battle for a top 3 finish...

After the long trip south the girls took a while to wake up.. with the first 20 minutes clearly being dominated by Lichfield. A couple of strong set pieces eventually led to points on the board for the home team... firstly their prop crashing the ball over the line from 5m out (converted by their 10) and then a second try closely followed (converted by their 10). Conceding twice seemed to wake the Novos ladies up and the next twenty minutes saw a fantastic fight back by the ladies in red, white and black who upped their game and played with the purpose and intensity we have come to expect from them this season. Lichfield did manage to breakdown the excellent defence, with their outside centre scoring out wide (no conversion). However this was followed by a period of Novos dominance. Laura Stewart stormed down the right wing showing both her pace and strength to score a great try (no conversion). Rebecca Stanger followed suit demonstrating her own tower of power.. shrugging off the tackles of at least two red and greens for a try under the posts (converted by Lauren Roberts).

After a short half time break the game restarted. With the score at 19-12... the second half promised to be a battle worthy of the history books Cathy Foster reads on a Friday night. A closely contested 40 minutes followed unfortunately dampened by some poor refereeing decisions (not sure if I'm able to say that.. but it's true!). Lichfield scored 2 good tries (1 converted) and had 1 player yellow carded then later red carded. Despite being frustrated with a flurry of penalties being given against them.. the awesome Novos ladies showed their fantastic team spirit and fought till the very last minute of the game with super sub Elle Bloor being unlucky not to cross the line. Well done to both teams... back of the match went to Caitlin 'the general' Sedgeworth and forward of the match went to Janey 'twinkletoes' Eccles. Emma Nichol wasvoted best lines-woman of the season!