Widnes 42 Salford 20
Anyone on the Widnes side, who thought that the newly-formed Salford Ladies’ team would be an
easy take in Sunday’s opening league fixture at the home of the Halton Hornets amateur side,
must have had to amend their expectations quite rapidly, as the game started to unfold in the
most surprising of manners.
New sides take time to settle and to jell. They are unsure of one another and the hesitancy this
leads to can cause havoc in both attack and defence, and this new-look Salford team comprised
of fourteen brand new faces, the three survivors from last season being, hooker and skipper, Taz
Corcoran, centre and joint vice-captain, Alex Simpson, and fullback, Anna Dennis.
When you look at them, however, who else but them would you have wanted in place of any of
them, if you could only retain three individuals. It is not only their undeniable loyalty to the club,
which they bring, it is the wonderful talent they each possess, and which will be so fundamental
to the foundation and subsequent development of the team.
The game was a mere four minutes in, when, Dennis joined the Salford line and accelerated past
three or four Widnes defenders to race 70 metres, to the try line, rounding her opposite fullback
on route, to score between the posts, and then rub salt into the wound by adding the goal points
to the score.
That first goal was going to prove a great cushion of comfort to the side throughout the half, as
Widnes twice tried, and each time failed, to get back on even terms with the visitors. A dropped
pass, on eleven minutes, gave possession to the home side, in the Salford twenty, and some
rather weak tackling failed to stop a determined carry culminating in a try on the Salford left side,
bringing the score to four points to six.
In the warm temperatures in which the game was being played, a break in play, on 19 mins, was
called for the players to rehydrate themselves, and immediately upon the resumption the visitors
extended their lead once more, completing their set with a try by substitute, Jodie Morris,
following a beautifully judged pass from stand-off, Lily Oakley. From that well worked try, Oakley
went on to have a much greater impact on the attack, with her smooth silky passes prompting
attacking runs into gaps, from the recipients. Morris, meanwhile, went on, to turn this solitary try
into a brace, with the last score of the afternoon.
A handling error shortly after the restart set Widnes up for another try, once again reducing the
Salford lead from six to two points, at 8-10, on 24 minutes, but ten minutes later, Alex Simpson
caught the Widnes defence napping by scooting blind-side to score out wide. Dennis celebrated
this with a grand conversion from the touchline, to take the team into a deserved 8-16 half time
lead.
Sadly, the second half was to be a very different story, getting off to the worst possible start with a
knock on being adjudged, directly from the kick off. This came as something of a surprise to many
people watching on the sideline, who had thought that the ball had struck the Salford player’s leg
rather than her hand or arm. There was to be no doubt about the outcome though with Widnes
giving their confidence an immediate boost with a score close to the post, thereby narrowing their
deficit once more to two points.
Three minutes later and they were in front for the first time as a result of first a penalty and then a
set restart, as the Salford side struggled to adjust to the swing in momentum, and suffice it to say
that throughout the forty minutes they were almost completely starved of possession. It was, in
fact, well into the eighth minute of the half before they actually touched the ball to start a set, and
in total they could not have had any more than five sets, not all of which they completed.
Their very last set of the game, however, was finished off by Morris’s second try, which came as a
result of a tremendous run by Dennis to set up the attacking position. It was no more than they
deserved, and their concentration this week must be on the many positives of the first half.There is just so much talent within the team which will become more and more evident as time
goes on, such as that of loose forward, Mia Regan, who led the way in standing up to much
bigger and superiorly physical opponents for the full eighty minutes.
