Border Ladies brace for Boland test after Bulls mauling

The Border Ladies camp acknowledge that playing the Boland Dames at home will be another big hurdle but remain optimistic about coming home with maximum points. The Women’s Super League fixture will be played at the Boland Stadium in Wellington on Saturday (3pm). The matchup comes at a time whenBorder are coming off a century loss against SA’s lone professional team, the Blue BullsDaisies, in East London.

Over the past few seasons they have evolved their game and have often been in contention for the women’s league final, though they have come up short. The progression from being a bottom-league team to being among the best has been brought about by resources being pumped into the union by businesspeople. They are able to recruit some of the country’s top players, in contrast to Border.

Border have to rely on U20 players to make up their wider squad, and these players are inexperienced at top-flight level. Border Ladies head coach Bongani Nogilana feels the youngsters who were fielded against the Bulls got stage fright. “The Bulls are a different breed.

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So are Boland. They have good players and are hard to play at home,” Nogilana said. “We have worked hard on our defence and breakdown with specifics this week because those areas were our downfall in the Bulls game. “If you look at the game against the Bulls, the team fronted up in the first 10-15 minutes, but then we lost the plot.

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