Having not beaten the Blues in four years, the ‘Girls of Gwent’ were looking to improve upon the two close encounters of the previous years.
With Elinor Snowsill back in the 10 jersey, the Dragons were in the ascendancy for the first whistle. The first score came not long into the first half, with good build up in phase play seeing Beth Dainton going in at the corner.
The Dragons never looked back, moving the Blues defence around the park. A high work rate of the forwards around the breakdown kept giving Sian Moore and later Amy Day quick ball to set the back line going.
The midfield pairing of Gemma Rowland and Chrissy Siczowa were constant threats to the Blues defence, with the back three of Dainton, Meg O’Sullivan and Emma Hennessy proving to be a handful for the outside backs.
All got on the score sheet, with U18 product Hennessy scoring an outstanding individual try from well inside her own half. The Dragons scrum was dominant and were rewarded with a push over try for No 8 and captain Rachel Taylor.
Blues captain Becky Newton was a threat to the Dragons, making numerous carries resulting in some line breaks which couldn’t be capitalised on. They Blues never gave up and were camped in the Dragons 22 right at the death until a turnover and break which saw Ceri Bailey ghost through. The movement was finished off by another U18 product, Jodie Williams.
“We’ve been threatening to click for a while, today everything went well for us but we never imagined we’d score 61 points,” said Dragons Head Coach Gwesyn Price-Jones.
“Credit to the Blues, they kept going and did cause us some problems defensively. What we are most pleased with was when we made changes we kept going, it didn’t effect our intent to play. Alongside that, this season we’ve seen eight former U18 players play for the senior side more likely to feature in the second block of games post Christmas. We’re really excited to see where we can go from here.”
