PERSHORE’S women’s touch rugby club made it a hat-trick of victories as they won their third successive Midlands Ladies Touch League South West tournament at Ross on Sunday, which makes it a clean sweep for the team at the halfway mark in the South West area competition.
Winning all of their matches in the latest eight-team, South West contest means they are now one of the top four seeded teams going into the first of three Midlands-wide Super Sundays, where 16 teams from across the whole region (South West and North East together) will compete to decide the overall Midlands Ladies Touch League champions.
On Sunday at Ross, the Pershore women met four-time champions Bromyard in the final and won 2-1.
After three seasons of playing in the league and coming a close second to Bromyard in all but one of last year’s league tournaments, the result was met with delight by the Pershore team.
Coach Alice Keylock says the team’s training is paying off: “The ladies have such a positive, can-do approach to their game and are not afraid to try new things, make mistakes and learn from them.
“It is a pleasure to see how creative and expansive their game has become and the winning is a bonus!”
The Midlands Ladies Touch League (MLTL) has grown massively in the last year and 16 women’s teams and nearly 200 women now regularly play, which means the league, from this season, has been divided in two regions – North East and South West.
Each of the regions host six regional league tournaments in the 2015 touch season – which runs from March to November – to find their regional champion.
The three, all-team Super Sunday tournaments – two in the summer and a final in the autumn – will decide the overall MLTL winners.
The Ross tournament on Sunday was the third of the six South West MLTL 2015 fixtures. Final South West placings after the day were: 1st Pershore, 30 points; 2nd Bromyard, 27 points; 3rd Redditch, 23 points; 4th Ross, 19 points; 5th Greyhound and Luctonians, 18 points; 7th Berry Hill, 11 points; 8th Bredon, 4 points.
Local women playing for Pershore on Sunday were: Alice Keylock (coach), Emmie Bewley (four tries), Fizz Bewley, Sharon Moore, Sian White, Emma Field, Sue Breay (three tries), Sarah Thomas (team player of the tournament), Kiele Doyle, Teresa Crowley (five tries); Verity Farr (three tries).
Touch rugby training takes place at Pershore RFC every Wednesday at 7.30pm and Sunday at 10am and anyone aged 13 and over can come along and have a go. The first three sessions are free. Contact Fizz on 01905 381080 for details.
