Since September, John Kyrle’s U13 Girls rugby team have been training twice a week. One session takes place at the school in Ross-on-wye with Patrick Hill and Claire Godwin. Patrick is a PE teacher at the school, and Herefordshire’s Rugby Development Officer. Claire is an ex-Welsh rugby International player. The second weekly session takes place at Ross RFC on Friday nights with Malcolm Hannaford, Gloucestershire U18 Girls’ team manager.

Last Tuesday night, a girls-only rugby festival was held at Ledbury RFC with nine school teams in attendance. After an hour of skill development with RFU coaches, the John Kyrle pupils were ready to play.

After a nervous start, JKHS opened the scoring against QE School, Bromyard with a fantastic solo effort from Lucy Powell, who used her strength to brush off four defenders to score in the corner.

Wing Izzy Tucker darted over for Ross’ second, with the speedy Cerys Johnson sidestepping two Bromyard players for Ross’ third. Ellie Lown then completed the victory with a thundering run through the heart of the Bromyard defence to make it 20-0 to John Kyrle.

In the second and final game against a strong Weobley side, it was Carys Lowley who got the party started with an aggressive run from deep, causing havoc in the opposition’s defence. She dived over the line to take an early 5-0 lead, but the lead was short lived as Weobley equalised straight from the kick off.

This spurred the girls into action and another try from Lowley, along with determined tackling from Ellie Lown and Holly Matthews, saw Carys cross again for her second of the game.

Lown was formidable in both defence and attack and another try for her was inevitable, giving Ross a 15-5 lead going into the final period of play.

Hennessy Vine sealed the victory with a lovely run to score Ross’ final try to record their second victory of the day by 20 points to five.

Anyone aged 11-13 wishing to join Ross RFC’s U13 team is very welcome to go along to training, which takes place every Friday night, between 5.45pm and 7pm at Ross RFC’s training ground at Greytree.