Enniskillen Girls U18s 50 ABBCD Girls U18s 5

Enniskillen U18 Girls secured the U18 League title with a fine performance in the Play Off Final against an unbeaten Ards/Banbridge/Ballynahinch/Cooke/Donaghadee (ABBCD) team at Cooke RFC on Sunday.

Skins, who themselves went into the play off unbeaten, controlled matters as they ran out convincing 50-5 victors.

Tasked with running the forward dominated ABBCD team wide right, then left and then right again, that’s exactly how it started with the ball spun wide from Aimee Ross through to Livvi Beavis and Amy Meeke to set Anna Wilson free to score a searing opening try on the left wing.

It took no time at all for the Skins wide play to strike again with Olivia Black passing to Freya Brennan who offloaded to Leah Irwin to score. Irwin also added the conversion to put Skins into a 12-0 lead.

Anna Wilson topped off a totally dominant forwards and backs Skins move with a lovely score, Alex Boyd, Sophie Moore and Keri Elliott were all instrumental in the play.

Then followed a massive defensive effort by Sarah Corry which resulted in Olivia Black carrying the ball out and Elle C McCloskey popping a pass to Amanda Farrell to score. With Irwin adding the extras, Skins led 24-0.

Amanda Farrell doubled her tally after a storming Gemma Elliott run, assisted ably by the unstoppable Niamh Barrett to leave it 29-0 at half time.

A great upfront battle with super line speed led by Olivia Black and Beavis resulted in a great offload by Ellen Graham to supporting scrum half Aimee Ross to run in the score from the halfway line.

Irwin knocked over the conversion to extend the Skins advantage to 36 points.

Anna Wilson then made her hat trick try after Niamh Barrett, Madeline Hamill and Amy Taylor set her free from half way, again converted by Irwin. It was possible that the huge defensive effort might get breached and so it was to be after a few dubious penalty awards but the ABBCD girls did deserve a consolation score for their contribution to the game. This defensive effort against a much larger team was outstanding and it was simply an amazing display of teamwork and team spirit that held out for so long.

It wasn’t the final action though as Elle C McCloskey took a spectacular restart kick off and offloaded to Player of the Match Niamh Barrett, she fed Sarah Corry who finally released Anna Wilson for her fourth try which was converted by Irwin to leave it 50-5 at the finish.

This was the complete performance by Skins who were simply irresistible in attack and defence.

With the league in the bag, they will now target a strong Cup challenge which commences on February 25.