**THURLES WOMEN V'S MIDDLETON**

Friday night -15th March 2024

Thurles women played Middleton in a league decider.

Knowing a win would secure the league for them ,the women hit the training ground hard in the final 2 weeks, in preparation for this clash, Middleton took the spoils on their 1st outing way back in October so the girls knew there was a tough task at hand.

middleton only had 11 players and with Thurles having 20 available players it was a lucky position to be in, to have a constant supply of fresh legs available.

Thurles started slow, and in front of a home crowd, they found it hard to find their pace.

A tightened in field punished Thurles as they love space to run at, however after a period of sustained pressure captain Emer Ryan kept her cool and kicked us out of our own 22 several times, on this occasion she managed to break through the line for a lovely try which she converted.

A super drive and run from the back of a scrum saw kaitlyn callanan run 40 metres for the line only to momentarily loose grounding of the ball so no try was given.

Middleton ran at us through the middle and that was all they threw at us with their kicks to our back field which were nicely recovered by Jayne dooley each time.

Kaitly callanan worked tirelessly throughout and her work paid off when after 6 mins camped on our 22, she held up a try to get us out of bother.

An early loss of Niamh Ryan ment we had to adjust our back line and also the loss of jayne dooley ment yet another change.

We went to half time 7 nil up.

Thurles had yet to find their pace and it was a bit stop start and not our usual game.

A few changes at half time saw us take to the field a much more confident team and we started to command the game much easier, we struggled in our line out despite the evening being a perfect night for rugby, but managed to keep our own ball. Swift thinking from our scrum half Beth Roche who o ly took up rugby this year spotted no pillar at the ruck and flew in for a really really clever try.

Thurles now sat 12 nil up and felt more comfortable in the game in the driving seat maby, when Eileen Gleeson made sure thurles upped a gear and got a great break to run in under the post for a lovely try from some strong carries from the Thurles pack.

Middleton kept us honest and awake as they pressed a few times with a strong kick and we had to work our new full back Katie Jones to cover the field.

Katie who had started on the wing was now sitting in the 15 position and she made several clean ups to save trys , and then went on a blistering run from halfway, chased the whole way to the line she zig zaged her way over the line for our 4th try of the game, conversion scored by Emer Ryan, we now sat at 24 nil with a bonus point in tact to go with our win.

A tremendous effort from every member of the squad , one that the girls will feel was a tough night . Certainly middleton made us work for it,

We now face middleton again in the 1st round of the cup early April, here's hoping that the girls can work tworads the double , league and cup in 1 year,

Speedy recovery to Niamh Ryan, Jayne Dooley and Ash o Hagan, hoping they will all be back on the pitch for our cup game.

Thanks to the mens team who clapped the women to the pitch and supported us throughout the game.

A great league campaign for the girls this year . To finish top is an excellent achievement and a testament to the work being done on the training pitch by each and every player on the squad.