Stornoway’s rugby women came thundering back into competition in winning style yesterday (Saturday 18 March) with a win in the first round of a national trophy tournament.

Stornoway WRFC were facing Bannockburn Valkyries in the first match at Bayhead for over a year, and the first competition in a tournament since the early days of the Covid-hit 2019/20 season.

Just a week ago the Stornoway RFC Ladies’ team told welovestornoway.com they had re-grouped, retrained and reset for the Scottish RFU National Bowl competition, and were confident they could make their mark.

And yesterday the Stornoway girls proved their point with a 17-12 win over the mainland visitors, after what they called ‘a hard-fought game that could have gone either way’ and ‘a cracking first game back at Bayhead.’

Two tries were scored by team captain Emma Murray and one by Mhairi Law, with Mairi Crate making the conversion that rounded off the score.

Stornoway have two more games in the groups stages of the Women’s National Bowl competition – next Saturday (25 March) away to Highland RFC and on 1 April away to Perthshire RFC.

The top two teams from their group of four then progress to semi-finals.

The pictures show some of the action, with team captain Emma Murray and vice-captain Olivia Woodley centre-frame, and Mairi Crate lining up for a conversion kick (Stornoway RFC)