Aylesford Bulls Ladies came out on top when they met their local rivals Blackheath on Sunday afternoon.

Aylesford Bulls ladies welcomed Blackheath ladies to the Jack Williams ground for the first game of the new year and the first return fixture so far. Following the meeting just before Xmas where the Bulls won a nail bitting encounter with the last kick of the game it promised to be an exciting game. The final score line was to prove the most points Blackheath have conceded and least scored for at least two seasons.

With a very large vocal crowd in attendance the game started at a high pace played mainly between the 22’s for the first 20 minutes or so. The Bulls seemed to have the majority of possession but managed to give Blackheath a large proportion of ball by coughing it up in contact or passes going astray.

Blackheath seemed to have the early advantage out wide with a few half breaks and their centre managed to break clean through only to be flattened by veteran full back Susan French on the 22.

The Bulls however had complete dominance up front gaining many yards from massive maul’s from the line out and turning over ball in the scrum with a powerful drive. With half an hour gone against the run of play on a rare visit to the 22 after a mistake up field the Bulls failed to clear their lines and Blackheath won the turn over and managed to put their flanker in out wide as the Bulls ran out of cover.

From here the Bulls made their way down to the Blackheath 22 and almost immediately lost Flanker Liz Philp to the sin bin for illegal use of the boot. This seemed to kick the ladies in to full throttle and they started to batter the Blackheath line after going close twice the Bulls were awarded a scrum and Blackheath now had no answer at scrum time as they were driven back over their goal line by the powerful front row of Rebecca Schorah, Vicky Sieben and Claire Phillips.

They couldn’t quite get the grounding from here so scrum half Katie Dootson span the ball to Fijian fly half Ema Vereivalu who broke two tackles to crash over for the 14 player bulls to give a 5-5 half time score.

From the restart the Bulls were starting to hit top form and worked their way deep into opposition territory with just 5 minutes of the half gone Blackheath really looked like they were struggling to contain the Bulls power runners as their fitness faded.

Following another a break from Dootson the ball again found its way to Vereivalu who again had too much power for the tiring opposition to go over near the posts Philp restored to the field slotted the easy conversion to give the Bulls a 12-05 lead.

Back rowers Catherine spencer, Jade Binskin-Barnes and lock Michele Mayhew were now making huge in roads with ball in hand. Captain Phillips who had her game of the season gave the the opposition something to think about with a massive hand off, Clair Richardson and Schorah followed suit all taking their would be tacklers completely off their feet.

With hooker Sieben and her jumpers Angela Smith and Binskin-Barnes operating well in the line out Blackheath stopped competing giving the Bulls constant free ball, and such was the dominance at the scrum most ended with a Blackheath players strewn on the floor struggling to continue.

Any chance of Blackheath getting back into the game were thwarted with text book tackles including a huge hit from Vereivalu. Blackheath took a decisive blow on 65 minutes when German 7’s flyer Lisa Bohrmann finished off a sweet attack down the right flank involving her German 7’s counterpart Rafica Schneider, she managed to dot down under the sticks to give Philp another easy conversion.

With a Blackheath player in the bin for constant infringements at the breakdown the Bulls finished the game as a contest with 5 minutes to go as Bohrmann received the ball on the half way line and had far to much pace and power for three Blackheath defenders as she somehow broke through all of them after it seemed they had held on to her, she outpaced any cover and again placed down under the posts for anther easy Philp conversion.

In the remaining couple of minutes after the Bulls had made a host of changes Blackheath made only there 2nd visit of the half to the Bulls 22 a subsequent knock on led to the full time whistle to give the Bulls a 26-05 win.

Forward of the match was awarded to Prop Rebecca Schorah who totally dominated her opposite number in the scrum and was like an extra back row in the loose and back of the match went to scrum half Katie Dootson who distributed, tackled and controlled the pack very well as well as making a number of breaks.

Team: French, Schneider, Bohrmann, Richardson, Olliver, Vereivalu, Dootson, Schorah, Sieben, Phillips, Mayhew, Smith, Binskin-Barnes, Philp, Spencer.

Reserves: Tebb, Faithful, Cozens, Lynch, Rowe, Saunders.

Photo: Martyn Watson