Following a successful return home to Mattioli Woods Welford Road with a 57-0 win over Kenilworth Women, we caught Head of Women's Rugby Vicky Macqueen for her thoughts on the match, keeping focus in changing times and the support of the fans.
Vicky, another great win at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, tell us about that one?
Really pleased, especially the second half; we were looking to tighten some areas up and we feel we did that with the replacements made. I feel like we left a lot of points out there, lots to improve on, we always want to get better but, on the whole, really good performance.
Speaking to Natasha Jones earlier, it almost sounds a bit harsh, but 57 points might flatter the team as Kenilworth were certainly better than that today.
100% agree with that, they just didn’t take their chances; you could flip that and I would say our defence was really strong and I’m proud we managed to keep them out. Absolutely, they (Kenilworth) deserved to get some points out of that game, their work around the breakdown was really strong, they counter-attacked really well. I’m proud of our defence but I do think the scoreline flattered us today.
How important is that 0 on the scoreboard every week, is it something you talk about?
Yeah 100%, we always want to keep it to nil and that gave us that extra impetus today in defence, whenever they went close. To keep the scoreline at 0, I’m always proud when we do that.
How proud are you of the way the girls have stayed on task; you’ve got the excitement of the Premier 15s coming up next year so how proud are you that the team keeps focused, keeps turning up each week and not focusing on their own performance but focusing on the collective?
It’s the culture and environment we’ve created here that is just so solid, you can really see that in the way they play for each other out there. None of them are out for themselves, it’s all about the team first and foremost. You can see that very rarely do they experience white-line fever, even when we’re 50 points up we are still looking to use the width and get the ball wide. You can see that everyone works so hard for each other and you can see the value of the team mentality.
There’s more and more people who keep turning up to watch you and what’s lovely to see is young boys and girls who know all the players names and are so excited to get autographs and photos. That must make you so proud to see.
It really does make me smile and the tour group that went round before the game, you can see in the faces of those kids that they’re heroes to them and that’s what it’s all about, being those role models. When you look at the crowd and the age of the crowd it is full of young people and that’s what we’re aiming to keep doing moving forward.
