For those interested, the national festival for Y9 and Y7 girls was played today at Hopwood Hall, Rochdale.

Our London girls paid to travel up yesterday and we stayed in the rather splendid Leigh sports village Park Inn (there were some truly bemused customers there this morning when seventeen 14 year-old girls in rugby league kit turned up for breakfast). Then we travelled to the festival this morning after playing "sidestep the dog poop" on a patch of grass roundthe back of the stadium.

When we got there we saw that the two development area teams (us and Midlands champs, Coventry), had been allocated to different groups, presumably as the easybeats, along with three other teams in each group from Cumbria, Lancs and Yorks. We also discovered that as two teams had apparently dropped out (why would anyone drop out of a finals comp ?), we were only going to get three 14-minute games unless we finished in the top two of our group and got a semi. At that point, as the heavens opened, I was beginning to question whether it had been worth the 10 hour round-trip.

I'll save the match reports for the school newspaper, but suffice to say here that my Bromley girls, confusing their northern foes by delivering "parsses" and playing on the "grarss", first beat the Cumbrian representatives, West Lakes High School 2 tries to 1 (I think), and then in a titanic battle defeated Lancashire champions, the mighty St John Fisher of Wigan, by (I think again) 3 tries to 2, defending their own line resolutely for much of the last nerve-wracking few minutes. As a St Helens lad, watching my team beat the pies was about as satisfying as it gets.

That win secured us a semi-final place, which was a good job, as we rather forgot how to play in our third group match against a strong Featherstone team. Our ultimate second place finish in our group therefore won us a semi against reigning champions Castleford High. Unfortunately, that was one step too far for the London girls, and their previous efforts told (plus growing tiredness from what I later discovered had been early-hours shenanigans in the hotel - the muppets), and Castleford showed why it'll take a fair bit to wrest that trophy from them.

It was a great day and a great experience, and although my lasses were understandably upset to be beaten, because they're all competitors, we had a wonderful time and the girls' resolve to be back challenging next year is stronger than ever (they've all promised me that next time they'll actually try to sleep the night before). I'm a very tired, but very proud, coach tonight.

And in my humble opinion, we definitely had the best kit in the tournament ! Thanks again RLFans.

Hope you enjoyed the visit to the RL mecca that is the LSV

I don't mind putting my yacht purchase back a year for a cause such as this.

Good luck, Roy.

good to hear a league success down here in london. we need to keep spreading the greatest game!

well dome

Very well done to all concerned

Well done to them, nice to see the word being spread and youngsters playing and enjoying the game. Good luck to them for the future!

To those who think RL has no future in London ..............................

I try not to be rude at times.

Excellent story.

Lets have more

Booo! You've clearly lost the dressing room. Sack the coach! Sack the coach!

Roy, I understand your frustration in not being able to publish the latest pics of the ladies resplendent in their kit.

While we wait, do you by any chance have any earlier pictures of the squad, before the kit was delivered?

to admins and all involved, what an uplifting story!