The England PDRL Community Lions made a triumphant return to the international stage on Saturday defeating Wales 22-10 at Llandovery RFC.
Saturday was the first time that the side have played in a competitive fixture since their historic win in the inaugural PDRL World Cup last Autumn with head coach, Michelle Melling, leading the side for the first time since her appointment earlier this year.
England opened an eight-point lead within 20 minutes after tries from Scott Gobin and Steven Bates – a score they would maintain heading into half time.
Gobin was successful once again upon the first set of the restart with Adam Fleming converting to make the score 14-0. Wales responded shortly after through Morgan Jones who converted his own try to make it 14-6.
Warrington Wolves’ Jamie Barnett then produced two stunning kicks in quick succession to allow both Callum Parkinson and Nick Leigh to score and give England a controlling 22-6 lead and as the game drew to a close, Paul Jones scored Wales second of the game to leave things at 22-10.
England PDRL Community Lions Head Coach, Michelle Melling, says:
“It was an honour and privilege to lead the team in the first match as head coach, the players really worked hard for each other in tough conditions and came away with a victory to maintain our 100% winning record as an international team.
“We are all now looking forward to our second fixture on home turf and we’ll be working hard as a squad until then to fix areas of improvement we have identified during the game in Llandovery to ensure we are ready to showcase the very best of PDRL on October 14.”
Saturday’s fixture is part of a two-game series which will be the pinnacle of this year’s international programme with Melling selecting her squad off the back of newly-introduced development days and domestic representative matches. On Saturday October 14 England will face Wales at Pilkington Recs ARLFC.
