Windermere Warriors travelled to play Leyland Warriors on Sunday.

Due to waterlogged pitches Leyland switched the venue to Bolton RUFC.

It was a bitterly cold day with the wind blowing strongly and diagonally across the pitch.

Leyland kicked off with the advantage of the wind slightly behind them and, maximising their advantage of a much larger pack, they immediately pressed the Windermere line and within two minutes crossed the white wash for a converted try.

Windermere fought to play themselves into contention, with Lucy Branthwaite chipping through and leading the charge only for Leyland to stall and defend denying Windermere a score.

Both sides committed handling errors due, in part, to the howling wind and bitter cold.

From a breakdown in the Windermere half, Leyland's No7 picked up, peeled away and ran in under the posts to make it 0-14 at half time.

Windermere now had the wind in their favour and found their feet, pressing the Leyland line, only for some outstanding defence to keep them out.

Francheska Horsborough, with a hallmark sweeping run around the outside, burst through to set down in the corner following some outstanding forward play.

With the big Leyland pack now tiring the Windermere scrum started to dominate and led by Mhairi Callingham were pushing Leyland off their own ball.

Mhairi also led the charge in the loose play, ripping and driving and Leyland had to do some heroic on-the-line tackling.

Lucy Branthwaite took a quickly-taken Windermere penalty, chipping through and following up at speed, gathering and crossing the line next to the posts. The try was converted by herself to make it 12-14.

The final ten minutes saw Windermere playing most of the rugby in the Leyland 22 only to be denied, just in touch, at the corner at the final whistle.

A much-improved Leyland ladies hung on to their hard-fought win.

Credit should be given to both sides, who tried to play good rugby in the harshest of conditions.