WPL Week 5: Beantown vs Berkeley Match Report by Phoebe Boone + Video

Beantown traveled to the SF Bay Area over the weekend to be met with cloudy skies and a hard fought match to save their season. They met the All Blues on Treasure Island on Saturday and made it clear from the get go that they wanted to win. Although the match opened with an impressive line break from All Blues scrumhalf Elaine Gardner, after a turn over ball, Beantown’s hard running inside center Rachel Sachs got them out of their half and after multiple attacks from their forwards, lock Sharon Blaney touched the ball down in minute six. Hooker Emily Jones converted. But the All Blues answered back quickly with an impressive line break from fullback Ashley English that brought them into Beantown’s 22 again. 10 minutes later, after multiple penalties against Beantown, All Blues flyhalf Ruth Bryson sent the ball through the uprights to bring the score to 3-7. 16 minutes passed before the next points were put on the board and those came from All Blues wing Nathalie Marchino. Beantown answered back 6 minutes later when #8 Mel Denham scored (try unconverted). Another Beantown penalty saw All Blues prop Katrina Logan quickly tapping the ball to English who broke the line again and brought the All Blues into scoring position. Another penalty saw the ball spun wide to All Blues wing Irene Gardner who crossed the line to bring the halftime score in the All Blues favor 13-12.

The second half opened with an impressive line break from Denham where successful offloads brought them within kicking range, but Beantown flyhalf Kelly Seary’s attempt at a penalty kick sailed wide. But Beantown intended to take the lead and their forward made it happen with a rolling maul pressing the line that the All Blues weren’t able to stop. Beantown prop Jamie Burke touched it down at the back and Jones converted (13-19 Beantown). But just a few minutes later, another quick tap off a Beantown penalty saw All Blues outside center Hannah Stolba dishing the ball to English who fought her way in for a try. Fresh legs from All Blues flanker Vix Folayan had an impact, but 2 almost simultaneous sin bins for the All Blues saw the team struggling to put together a scrum as a prop Logan and lock Katie Chou sat on the sidelines fuming. No surprise that Beantown was able to score while playing 2 people up and fullback Katie Dowty crossed the line in minute 55 with Jones converting to bring the score to 18-26 in Beantown’s favor. In the next 25 minutes, the All Blues would battle back to try and even it up with another try from English (23-26), but after another succesfull rolling maul from Beantown, Seary was able to get a clear shot at the posts and kicked a successful drop goal at minute 59 to cap off Beantown’s scoring for the day (23-29). In the last 5 minutes, even with 4 successive penalties against Beantown, the All Blues were unable to convert their individual desires to win into team play and fell short on the day. Final score All Blues 23 – Beantown 29.

Wk 5: All Blues v Beantown 2nd half from Women's Premier League Rugby on Vimeo.

Wk 5: All Blues v Beantown 1st half from Women's Premier League Rugby on Vimeo.

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