The new Cardiff Demons Women’s Super League South side had an outstanding start to life on Saturday when they stormed to an 88-6 win over Golden Ferns in Bristol.
Their hosts, the female arm of the All Golds club, were on the back foot from the start after Wales captain Shaunni Davies scored in under 90 seconds. Ffion Lewis, who became Wales’ 100th dual code international last week.
Davies soon went over for her second try two minutes later and the scores continued quickly. Lowri Norkett was over for the third on six minutes and the Demons scored four more before the 20 minute mark.
Eleri Michael, Ffion Lewis and Charlie Mundy all went over with Davies completing her hat-trick in style. Lewis added a further two goals to make the score 38-0.
After stopping for a water break halfway through the half, the Demons were enthused more and straight away Seren Gough-Walters slipped through to ground near to the sticks and Lewis converted.
Two more tries followed in the next ten minutes as Norkett went over for her second and Kim Boaler added another. Both were out wide making the conversions difficult.
Credit to the Golden Ferns as they kept Cardiff out for the final ten minutes of the first half and showed some promise in attack too, but the resilient Demons held them off and were 52-0 up at half-time.
The Welsh came storming out of the traps again in the second half as Norkett got her hat-trick with Davies adding her fourth. Lewis and Boaler each ran over for their second tries to push the Demons up to 72-0 on the hour mark.
Michael ran over for her second try following the restart before the hosts finally got on the board in the 66th minute. It came after they were awarded a penalty 30 metres out from the Demons’ line. From that set, Ella Dawkins forced her way over the line to ensure the home side didn’t have a zero by their name. Victoria Mansell converted.
However Cardiff weren’t going to let them score a second. Instead they increased their lead further as Molly Reardon ran over for their 16th try with Lewis successfully converting for the 10th time.
Norkett got her fourth of the game in the final few minutes with Lewis failing to convert, as the victory was cemented.
Following Cardiff’s 17 tries, Valley Cougars also recorded a large win as they scored 13 to beat All Golds men 70-16 in the Southern Conference League.
It could have been more, but the match was stopped on 64 minutes for safety reasons after a number of injuries saw the home side down to 10 fit men.
Liam Watton scored four first half tries as the Cougars raced into a 40-16 lead at the break. His brother Adam Watton also contributed with a brace of tries whilst Sam Pridgeon scored a hat-trick. Gethin King also added two, with Dafydd Hellard and Dean Higgs scoring one apiece.
Mike Hurley booted seven goals with Ben Jones adding a further two.