Rugby league: Rochdale Hornets Ladies 14 - 54 Warrington Wolves Reds Ladies

Rochdale Hornets Ladies team 2021

It had been 420 days since Hornets Ladies' last game, which ironically was also against Warrington Wolves Reds.

Since that time, the country has been in a variety of lockdowns and restrictions which meant that training had been very stop-start for the ladies.

The aim was always going to be to hit the ground running, and that they did - a really fast start from Rochdale saw Rachel Muir take the ball strongly on the right edge to expose a gap and race 80 metres to score on the second play of the game.

However, from taking an early lead, Rochdale seemed to struggle to hold on to the game, with errors and penalties gifting Warrington field position.

Rochdale conceded 24-unanswered points before recently-appointed captain Claire Collins harassed from marker, forced an error, kicked 15 metres and dropped on the ball to score next to the posts before half-time. The try was converted by Harriet Widdup.

That brought up the half-time score 10-24.

After regrouping at half-time, Rochdale came out strong but unfortunately conceded first to go 10-30 down.

This was not an impossible score to come back from, and a booming kick was put in by Claire Collins for the right edge to chase. Kate Howard climbed highest and got over the line to score a fantastic try. The ladies were buoyant.

Unfortunately, after a few shut-outs by Warrington, the pace of the game began to show, and Warrington managed to find little holes in Rochdale’s defence and expose the marker play to run in a further 24 points to take the score to 14-54 at the final whistle.

This game was many of the Hornets' ladies first run out at rugby league and everyone’s first run out in over 400 days, a great achievement considering all the disruptions the last 14 months has brought.

Rochdale Hornets Ladies next game is on Sunday 16 May away to Hull KR, which should be the last fixture with no fans allowed (restrictions permitting).