Horsham Ladies defeated at Sutton & Epsom but women's rugby is the winner

Dark clouds gathered and the rain came down just as Horsham ran onto the pitch, which unfortunately set the tone for a difficult match for the away side.

The home team ran away with a strong start, but an early try was disallowed.

Horsham came back, with Jody Morris-Jones and Clare Brooks battling hard to get some forward momentum going.

Charlie Clark worked valiantly to break through and run the ball up the pitch for Horsham but she couldn’t make it on to the scoresheet.

Sutton & Epsom broke through a gap in the defence, and ran straight for the posts.

A desperate attempt to stop them unfortunately let to Horsham giving away a penalty try and having a player in the sin bin.

Sutton & Epsom capitalised on this with a brace of further tries before and after half-time and Horsham heads started to drop.

Eventually Horsham’s luck turned at the 50-minute mark. Horsham won the opposition’s lineout at 22 metres and drove forward with a maul.

After both teams fought a tough battle on the try line, Wendy Shepherd inched the ball over to take the score.

Kate Leyshon took the conversion with her trusty boot. But Horsham failed to make much ground in the last few minutes of the game, and a final try from Sutton & Epsom sealed their win 47-7.

After the game, the ladies joined Sutton & Epsom in their celebrations, which included a rousing speech from their own Patricia Lefevre who set out an inspiring vision for the future of girls and ladies rugby at Horsham RUFC.