Aylesford Bulls Ladies ended Oaks 2 and a half year unbeaten home record at the weekend with a comprehensive 22-0 win.

By Max Melville-Brown

Aylesford Bulls ladies arrived at the picturesque Oakmeadians RFC after two and a half hours on a coach. The ground had coach Kata reminiscing about similar fields he had graced back in Fiji. With the wind swirling in their bowl shaped ground, the Bulls ladies anticipated a tough encounter at Oaks home territory where they have been unbeaten in the league since the 2009/10 season.

The Bulls started brightly, good handling and a number of offloads kept the Bulls deep in Oakmeadians territory. After a number of solid set plays the Bulls were really stretching their opposition and had the ball been released a bit earlier on a number of attacks the first points would have come however the relentless pressure told on 20 minutes when prop Becky Schorah crashed over from short range after taking a ball at pace.

Open side flanker Liz Philp added the conversion. From the restart Oakmeadians kick failed to go the required 10 metres so captain Claire Phillips opted for the scrum on half way. From the scrum Catherine Spencer showed why she is worth every one of her 63 England caps picking from the base eluding the attention of the opposition back row and scrum half crashing straight through the Oakmeadians fly half and centre then putting on the after burners to outpace the covering wing and full back to crash over for the Bulls second after 22 minutes.

The remainder of the half turned a bit scrappy with the Bulls pushing for more points and Oaks throwing everything at it to get back into the game the break downs became frantic and both sides demonstrated poor hands with a lot of balls going to ground. When the ball did get wide winger Rafica Schneider looked dangerous and the Oaks outside backs only just managed to contain her on a number of occasions. At the sound of the half time whistle the Bulls were 12-00 up.

Shortly after the break the Bulls introduced new signing Kelly Davies to the back row, Davis who is a recent addition to the squad after spending three seasons in the premiership with Wasps went on to have a solid debut putting in some great hits round the breakdown area, this pushed Jade Binskin-Barnes from the back row to prop to replace captain Phillips.

Unfortunately at the same time Oakmeadians beefed up their front row from the bench and went on to have the upper hand in the scrum. The game continued at a frantic pace where it had left off in the previous half with both teams looking for points but still far too many basic handling errors.

However on a foray into Oaks 22 following a number of strong attacking phases Spencer picked up from the base of a ruck to power over for her second. Oakmeadians really started to up there game now and a couple of fantastic double tackles from Clair Richardson and Binskin-Barnes plus great hits from wing Rebecca Rowe and veteran full back Susan French halted any ideas of a come back.

By now the breakdown area had become a complete farce with both sets of players expecting the bonus ball to roll out as it had became a complete lottery. The Bulls managed to add their fourth and final try on 70 minutes when German flyer Lisa Bohrmann finished off a move down the right flank to put the result beyond doubt. The Bulls seemed a bit disappointed by their performance but would have certainly taken the 22-00 victory before to end the hosts long standing home record.

Forward of the match went to Jade Binskin-Barnes who had her usual solid game and performed admirably when moved to the front row. Back of the match went to Full back Susan French who had another great all round game.

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

Reps: Pettitt, Davies, Cozens, Parker, Lynch, Benbow.