WANDERERS Ladies enjoyed another successful away day at Violetbank in the Borders on Sunday when they defeated Annan Warriors in an entertaining encounter that was arranged as part of the Scottish Rugby Union’s National Ladies Development and Training League series.

The session started with a core and unit skills session hosted by qualified senior coaches before developing into a competitive match between the sides which was played over three sessions of 35 minutes each.

It was the hosts who started brightest and raced to an early lead with two impressive long-range tries, and they showed that they had improved considerably since the earlier meeting between the sides.

Wanderers though soon got the long journey out of their legs and began to claw their way back into contention, with the strong running of Kathryn Avis, driving forward play of Lisa Edwards, vocal promptings of scrum-half Rachel Morrison and the untiring industry of Rachel Speirs prominent.

Speirs’ display earned her the prize of the newly-established ‘dame of the game’ award and it was well deserved after an all-action 80 minutes that did much to ensure a Wanderers victory.

The final try count of 6-2 in Greenock’s favour portrays an accurate reflection of the contest and the local girls showed some fine touches once they had settled into their stride.

Improvements were visible once more in all disciplines of the game and the lineout went particularly well, as did the continuity play out of the contact zone where some efficient offloading in the tackle kept the Greenock girls on the front foot.

Crisp distribution across the back line was also a feature of this latest Wanderers performance.

Flying winger Steph Ward claimed a brace of tries and Ashley Lazzara, Lesley Routledge, Rachel Morrison and Lisa Edwards all similarly crossed the whitewash to ensure a comfortable victory for Wanderers.

Coaches Brendan McGroarty and John McIntyre are satisfied with the progress to date but Sunday’s outing was a valuable exercise in highlighting areas for further improvement and the performance at the breakdown and tackle area will be focused on at training in forthcoming weeks.

The ladies’ next outing is a floodlit, Friday night friendly at Fort Matilda against Ayr which has been provisionally arranged for 12 December and more details will follow once the fixture is confirmed.

As always, an invitation is extended to any local women who wish to consider taking up the sport to contact lady captain Caitlyn Haldane at the Wanderers clubhouse, where training continues each Monday and Wednesday evening from 7pm.

l Wanderers are sponsored by Texas Instruments.