On the pitch at the home of Portsmouth RFC, the Chris Griffiths coached Guernsey Ladies won yet again to keep up the pressure on league leaders Ellingham & Ringwood.

The two sides had drawn when they met at the tail-end of September and the good news was that we had a great squad available to us for the game against Portsmouth Valkyries.

It was clear early on that once again we had the nudge on in the scrums, despite the fact that they had a very big powerful pack.

Our set pieces were proving to be far more effective than Portsmouth in general as our lineouts were working well too and they were really not getting much first phase ball, this meant we were to enjoy a lot of the first half possession.

We nearly capitalised on this early advantage with a fine break down the right wing by debutant Nicola Harper who sold a dummy and sprinted from the half way as far as the 5m line where she got tackled well and tried to offload to the supporting Carly Parrott, but it was unfortunately knocked on in the corner.

Five minutes later though after some great work from the forwards the ball found it's way into the opposition 22 and eventually out to inside centre Hannah McLennan, who span brilliantly out of two tackles to score under the posts.

The conversion was kicked by Jemma Crouse.

With ten minutes left in the half we scored a fantastic team try which started deep in our own half and went through several phases of play and with great continuity between backs and forwards. Eventually the ball was passed beautifully along the line and was expertly finished off under the sticks by fullback Carly Parrott and Jemma once again converted comfortably.

And it got better yet.

Just before half time another great passage of play saw the ball move from our right winger Nicola Harper, who despite being tackled late managed to get the ball out to Jemma Crouse and through the safe hands of the centres and into the path of a marauding Parrott who went around their right winger and full back to score a great try under the posts which was converted once again by the confident Crouse.

At 21-0 ahead at half time we were looking very comfortable but Portsmouth changed their tactics in the second half and started to use hard yards to force us back, and we were guilty of giving away far too many penalties as we were retreating.

We were punished in the end as they rumbled over a try from close range on the right hand side, but the conversion was missed. The same story continued as they retained possession well and despite strong defence on our part we found it hard to slow them down enough, and after one too many penalties, Heidi Mahy saw yellow for hands in the ruck as the referee ran out of patience.

Thankfully, we managed to hold them out whist Mahy was in the bin, but shortly after they worked a nice try out wide on the right hand side but fortunately once again failed to convert.

The Valkyries’ tails were now well and truly up and the momentum was fully with them, but our girls dug deep and hung on for the victory.

‘I thought our attacking play in the first half was very good indeed showing great handling skills and real pace all around the park and we did defend valiantly in the last ten minutes of the game to make sure we remain unbeaten and now only two points behind the league leaders but we have a game in hand,’ said the coach afterwards.

The next game is at home against Harlequin Ladies on January 10th. If we win that game we will be top of the table, albeit briefly depending on the Ellingham v Trojans result the following day.