HORNETTES Ladies rugby team travelled down the M5 to a wet Cullompton on Sunday, only to find the hosts with 13 players and no experienced front row.

HORNETTES Ladies rugby team travelled down the M5 to a wet Cullompton on Sunday, only to find the hosts with 13 players and no experienced front row.

The game went ahead with six forwards and seven backs and uncontested scrums, much to Hornettes’ frustration. It took Cullompton 10 minutes and a lot of hard work before they could break down the Hornettes defence and score an unconverted try.

As with their last game, Hornettes came back hard from the restart and took play into the host’s 22 and were close to scoring on several occasions, but couldn’t quite break the home defence. There was some great work in the pack from Trish Chenoweth, Zoe Fisher and Kristy-lee Silva.

The backs were strong in defence and kept the hosts at bay for the rest of the first half and the score remained 5-0 at half-time.

Hornettes made three changes, Dani Ethridge and Sam Wyatt came onto the wings in place of Kim Hixson and Laura Clarke and Lou Findlay went into prop in place of Trish Chenoweth.

Play was still to and fro between the teams and with a very slippery ball to contend with there were plenty of scrums. The forwards and backs all worked hard to contain the hosts and Sinead Boys (second row) put in a try saving tackle.

It was only in the last 20 minutes that Cullompton managed to break the visitors defence and score three unconverted tries. Hornettes should have been awarded a penalty try for holding back a player, but the referee blew for full-time. Final score was 20-0 to Cullompton.

Cullompton are top of the league and unbeaten this season, so a result like this to a team in their first season of league rugby, as Hornettes are, is encouraging.

Back of the match was scrum-half Kerianne Williams and the forward of the match was Sinead Boys.

Any ladies 18 years or over interested in playing rugby, please contact Tanya Carver-Cox on 079323 20966 or Jenny Cockayne on 077177 90838.