THE St Albans women's rugby team got off to a flyer this weekend with a 22 point whitewash of visitors Crawley in their first league match of the new season.

The home team enjoyed most of the possession throughout the match and the hard work from their forwards enabled the backs to blitz in four tries.

Dominating the scrums and competing well in the Crawley line-outs, the Saints forwards provided a platform from which the backs received plenty of second phase ball. They made the most of this and a flowing move along the line saw Sandy Chadwick go over for the Saints first try.

The second came shortly afterwards and again had its source in the pack's good play. From a scrum on the half-way line, Nicky Long received the ball and darted through the advantage line before popping a neat pass to Cath Botterman, who ran over from fully 40 yards out.

Comfortably in front at the break, St Albans improved their position shortly after the restart with Chadwick applying the finishing touch after more fast handling through the backs.

Claire Hack then created the fourth try, taking the ball on before slipping it to Becky Ellis coming though at pace. Caroline Holmes kicked the conversion to complete a crushing victory.