Last weekend saw the Irish Ladies WBL team travel to the UK for weekend 1 of the Womens British League. The team, made up of Ashley Givan, Sabina Devereux(pictured), Annalise Walker and Meadhbh Slattery are playing Division 1 level this year and had 5 matches over the course of the weekend.
Day 1 saw the Irish put up some real battling performances, earning two draws. Up first was Thornton TT and at 3-2 down the pressure was on international debutant Slattery to deliver a win against Lisa Radford. Slattery showed good composure to win in straight sets, -14, -9, -9. Slattery had an early win as did Ashley Givan to earn Ireland’s 3 points in a 3:3 draw. Up next was a heavy 6:0 defeat against YHL, with this time annalise Walker making her debut. YHL dominated the division this weekend and are strong favourites for promotion to the top tier. Day 1 finished with another 3:£ draw, this time against Leeds Ladies, Givan showing her class to claim two wins over Rebecca George and Janet Adams.
On Day 2, the Irish recorded their first victory of the weekend, with a 4:2 win over Halton TTC, with Givan again notching two wins and Slattery and Devereux recording one win each. The weekend culminated in another 6:0 defeat to Knighton Park.
Ireland finished the weekend in 4th place of 6 teams, but coach Brett is reasonably confident of retaining Division One status when the event concluded next February –
“The performance was as expected, Meadhbh Slattery got off to a good start and recorded a 50% win ration, Ashley performed well to record 5 victories over some strong opposition. Positive step to see Annalise Walker and Meadhbh Slattery making their debut at that level and they will have learned alot”