Army Women Thrash Navy In Inter Services Rugby League Opener

The Army Women’s team have started their Inter Services title defence in dominant fashion.

They beat the Royal Navy in Portsmouth by 60 points in an impressive performance.

This was the Army’s first match since beating York City Knights to win the Challenge Shield.

After a solid Navy defensive display in the first 15 minutes, the Army’s tries started to come with Carrie Roberts (2), Abby Etock, Shannon Bennett, Sarah Mitchelson and Beth Dainton all on the scoresheet in the first half.

The ladies in red were heavy favourites for the match after their victory over York to win a national competition and 10 of the 13 starters from that game played against the Senior Service.

In the second half, the Army continued to dominate.

Jess Williams scored the Army's eighth try before Dainton and Etock grabbed their second of the game to inflict more damage to the Navy.

Roberts completed her hat-trick with the final points of the game to give the Army an impressive 6-0-0 victory.

Army captain Emily White was pleased with the performance saying: “I honestly couldn’t be prouder of the girls.

“I think with every try, there was so many hands on the ball and so many offloads. I must admit they were making me nervous at first.

“We were breaking through the lines every time and the girls are such strong runners.

“We’ve now got a lot of strength in depth of the team. We haven’t had a lot of our players as they are on tour so we bought in some players from the fringes. They have performed really well.”