OA Saints make it two wins from two in the league

Old Albanian Saints made it two wins from two in the Women’s Championship South East Two with a 17-10 win at Romford & Gidea Park.

The game was always going to be a bruising encounter and certainly lived up to the pre-match discussions about styles of play.

Saints started well and pushed Romford deep into their own half with some surging runs, good lines and clever kicking.

And although the hosts were defending well, Saints managed to get the opening score.

A probing kick led to defensive confusion and a bouncing ball that was finally pounced on by Kate Barnes, who ran through to ground the ball to the right of the sticks.

Katie Robertson added the extras.

More attacking flair by Saints ended with no positives outcome on the scoreboard, and that looked to come back and haunt them when Romford took a quick penalty and, after a few phases, cross the line.

Fortunately for Saints the conversion was missed.

OAs were quick to get back on the front foot and another passage of multiple phases led to the home side straying offside; Robertson did the rest from in front of the posts.

And Robertson would convert again after Robyn King took a pass at pace and found herself able to run untouched to the line.

The final few minutes of the game belonged to the home side who pushed Saints back.

A penalty was kicked to touch and, after a safe collect from the line-out, Romford crossed for a converted consolation score.

Head coach Darran Brown said: “Although I am happy with the win, we have some areas to work on, which we will discuss at training.

“But the positives are outweighing our negatives at present, which is a good position to be in.

“The line-out is functioning well and scrum is efficient, however, we need to work on the support lines and line speed.

“Currently we are running at about 70 to 75 per cent of our full potential.”

Their next game is this Sunday when they travel to Tonbridge Juddian.