Landmark wins in both Premier 15s and Championship

Pte Courtney Pursglove (RLC) and Gnr Senitiki Nayalo (7 Para RHA) were both involved in landmark wins over the weekend.

Pte Pursglove lined up for Sale Sharks Women at Heywood Road knowing that a win over Loughborough Lightning would represent the team’s best ever start to a Premier 15s campaign.

And in front of the live stream cameras the Sharks had to show all their resilience to achieve that, recovering from conceding a try from the opening kick off and then a 14-7 half-time deficit to nil the Lightning in the second half and score eight unanswered points to win 15-14.

The win, which sees Sale move up to second place in the table behind Gloucester-Hartpury, also gave Pte Pursglove an early Inter-Services fillip over Loughborough’s Wales international and RAF player, Carys Williams-Morris.

Also on Saturday afternoon, in the West Midlands, Gnr Nayalo returned from injury to help Coventry recording an emphatic win over Doncaster Knights.

Games between Coventry and Doncaster have tended to be tight and tense affairs in recent seasons, but the blue and white ran riot to cement their place in the Championship’s top three.

Gnr Nayalo entered the action just before the hour mark, by which time Cov were already 20-7 up. But in the final quarter they ran riot, running in a further 27 unanswered points to win 47-7.

This past weekend also saw Army representation at one of the biggest Sevens festivals on the planet, as Spr Michael McDonald (RE) was in the Germany Development team which reached the semi-finals of the Men’s International Invitational competition at the 2022 Dubai Sevens.

Germany had headed to the Middle East with a spring in their step having won the Zambezi Sevens a couple of weeks previously, and they began their pool campaign in perfect fashion, beating Western Sydney Two Blues 21-15 and Froggies Gerard Bertrand 20-0 on day one.

Day two had just the one match, a narrow 19-21 loss to Abu Dhabi’s Speranza 22, but the two earlier wins were enough to put Germany into the Cup competition and a quarter final against Ireland Invitational.

This in turn was won 28-19 and brought a semi-final against France Development. However this was one step too far, and Germany bowed out with a creditable 26-38 defeat against the eventual champions, which left them in joint third place.