Newbury Blues Ladies traveled to reading's Sonning Lane ground on a beautiful spring day to defend their title as Berkshire Cup Champions. With most of the county's six women's teams finishing in the top half of competitive NC1SEW, the Blues knew that retaining the cup would be far from a formality, but they arrived in determined mood with a strong squad.

Pool game 1: Reading Abbey Ladies 7-5 Newbury
In a repeat of last year's tournament the Blues did not make the start they wanted. Their first pool game against Reading Abbey, Newbury set the early tempo and settled into their usual phase play but when an inventive kick was gathered by Abbey's strong running 13 they found themselves 7 points down in the first half. In what is becoming typical Newbury fashion, the response was immediate; the Newbury pack gathered the restart and drove into the Abbey half, and the superb ruck platform allowed Jeannie Ivanov to place a box kick behind the Abbey full back. Ivanov caught the full back on the chase and Megan Horwood jackaled possession, releasing Charlotte Williams for a powerful finish in the corner.

Newbury continued to dominate possession and camped themselves in the opposition's half, but in a 15 a side, 20 minute game format the clock was against them. They almost found the score they needed late int he day when Nicole Beesley almost found space ont he wing but the pass was centimetres out and Newbury found themselves on the wrong end of a 7-5 defeat.

Pool game 2: Newbury 27-5 Crowthorne
Newbury went into their final pool game knowing they needed to put points on the board to come out top of the group and it did not take them long to deliver. An unstoppable driving maul in the early exchanges should have allowed Megan Horwood to walk the ball over the line - Crowthorne's prop prevented this from a clear offside position so Niki Paton was able to slot over an easy conversion thanks to the award of a penalty try. Rather than protecting the points Newbury upped the ante and made life miserable for Crowthorne, who could not cope with the strong running and organisation of their opposition. The next three Newbury tries came from each back rows, who were outstanding all day. Number 8 Hannah ward picked and went off a scrum 15 metres from the line and burst through three tackles to ground the score, then Megan Horwood and Laura Smith were rewarded for their excellent support running with two great finishes. After the half time reshuffle, Blues debutant Harriet Mustard made life even more difficult for Crowthorne with an extra injection of rucking and running, demonstrating the frightening strength in depth of Newbury's back row. Charlotte Williams then completed the rout when experienced 12 Emma Rowland made a great call to split the back line form a scrum and released Williams on the blind side. Crowthorne showed admirable fighting spirit to gain a late score, sending Newburty full back Lizzie Harris to A&E for stitches in the process. Her last ditch tackle showed plenty of bravery but did not quite stop the try.

Semi-final: Newbury 19-0 Windsor
In the semi-final Newbury really began to turn on the style, and a Windsor outfit that had drawn with the Blues only a few weeks ago in a 70 minute game were comprehensively outclassed over 20. Newbury enjoyed most of the possession and never looked troubled by their opponents. They set the tempo early and after 5 minutes Megan Horwood popped a beautiful short pass to her back row companion Hannah Ward, whose line left the Windsor defense flat footed. After a 20 metre burst she offloaded to Charlotte Williams, whose pace and power left Windsor's back three for dead. Paton made no mistake with the conversion. Under increasing pressure and desperately needing scores, Windsor began to lose their discipline and conceded two tries, one a penalty, as a result. With a few minutes to go scrum half Jeannie Ivanov caught them napping 15 metres from the try line. She sailed through an offside defence and managed to sneak the ball down for 19-0, killing the game and sending the Blues into the final.

Final: Newbury 15-0 Reading
In a repeat of their last league fixture, Newbury faced Reading in the final. Reading had brought in experienced personnel but Newbury were by now on fire and showed absolutely no fear or respect. Their positive approach was effective almost immediately; a Blue box kick bounced into touch and Laura Smith pinched Reading's line out, allowing Newbury to drive into their 5 metre, where Smith popped up again for her second of the day, taking the ball from a short pass and wrong footing the defensive line. Reading could not get a foot in the game and had to resort to the boot of their experience 10 to try to gain possession, which simply gave Newbury more opportunities to use their line out to excellent effect. Ward burst through the line again late in the first half and found Jeannie Ivanov in support, timing her offload to perfection and allowing Ivanov a simple touch down under the posts. From there it was effectively game over but the Blues never let up and in the second half Niki Paton pummeled her way through the bodies in the 5 metre area. The way brought down by a horrible high tackle but somehow managed to pop the ball off the floor to Megan Horwood, who capped a magnificent day with a try from a metre out.

With the County Cup in their trophy cabinet and at least third place in the league secure and an extremely talented squad, Newbury can look forward to an exciting 2016-17.

However, retiring captain Louise Goodall and long term utility player Helen Mitford played their last competitive rugby in Blue and will be very sorely missed.

Squad: 1 Lou Goodall (c), 2 Rosie Brenton, 3 Lisa Aldred 4 Vicky Bland 5 Helen Mitford 6 Laura Smith 7 Megan Horwood 8 Hannah Ward 9 Jeannie Ivanov (vc) 10 Niki Paton 11 Milly Taylor 12 Emma Button 13 Charlotte Williams 14 Nicole Beesley 15 Lizzie Harris 16 Julie Utting 17 Ally Beech 18 Harry Synan 19 Harriet Mustard 20 Emma Horner

Forward of the match: Laura Smith
Back of the match: Jeannie Ivanov