365 Sporting Days

The first of 2 games at the Stonex Stadium saw Gloucester Hartpury playing Saracens, this is going to be more about the photos than the words, but, a quick description of what occurred to follow. This was the 4th Premier 15’s match for both teams, whose results had gone thus –

• Saracens 33 Wasps 10
• Saracens 34 Loughborough Lightning 21
• Harlequins 19 Saracens 10

• Gloucs-Hartpury 36 Bristol Bears 5
• Exeter Chiefs 17 Gloucs Hartpury 25
• Wasps 3 Gloucs Hartpury 67

This match had been advertised by Saracens as a chance to see their World Cup stars, but their England contingent were nowhere to be seen team wise. That was a shame as there was a decent crowd, with plenty of children amongst them, I believe those playing in the morning did get to meet a few of their heroes however.

Gloucs Hartpury carried on where they left off against Wasps scoring 53 points and inflicting Saracens biggest Premier 15’s loss. Kelsey Jones went over in the 3rd minute and that was the first of their 5 tries in the first half. The teams went in at half time with the score on Saracens 0 Gloucs-Hartpury 29. The visitors had been the better team in every aspect of the game.

Action photos from the first half, dominated by Gloucester-Hartpury

Gloucester scored another 4 tries in the second half, with winger Ellie Rugman scoring 2 of the 4. Saracens did come alive towards the end of the game and saved themselves being nilled, Sharifa Kasolo scoring her first Saracens try. But that was far too little, far too late and Saracens were well beaten.

Action photos from the second half

This was a chastening afternoon for Saracens, to take the words from Lottie Clapp’s post match interview “That’s not the Saracens way. There’s lots of learnings we need to take from that”

This was a really disappointing afternoon as a Saracens fan, I hope it doesn’t deter the new visitors from returning. It really says something about the women’s competition that I had to go to Twitter to get my (few) facts for the game, I couldn’t find any detail online. At least the BBC site has the results from today, that, is an improvement!