End of season presentations for the U18 Mermaids

Anna Parkin, assistant coach for the U18 Mermaids welcomed the girls and their families to the club on a gloriously sunny day. She also introduced special guest Jenny Davies, who has been awarded 43 caps for Wales women.
This season has not been as busy as in the past due to the scarcity of opponents in this area. Nevertheless the Mermaids have carried themselves well despite the difficulties of maintaining girl’s rugby in North Wales. They managed to overcome the absence of teams in North Wales and have carried on with their long relationship with the teams from across the border: Sandbach and Waterloo, who have become regular opponents over the years, and this season they have also played Tyldesley and Glossop. The girls have beaten all the teams they met this year and still remain the unbeaten champions of North Wales.
This year as before they have provided the core of players to form the Gogledd Cymru U18 girls who themselves had a good season; all of the U18 Mermaids were selected and have played for Gogledd Cymru.
Several girls have left the team during this season for various reasons and at present there are only 10 players registered with the club. Amongst them are girls who travel long distances to come to Colwyn Bay to train and to play - from Anglesey, Argoed, Llanfairfechan, Nant Conwy and St Asaph.
Medals were presented to those who have remained with the Mermaids:
Bethan Lloyd Jones, Cara Hope, Chloe Dymond, Elin Royle, Gwen Harries, Kaya Harding, Kumari Tilakawardane, Paige Davies.
Players not present at the ceremony: Laureanna Mc Gee and Hayley Ellis.
For the other awards there were several candidates in each category:
Most improved Player:
Chloe, who played for the first time this season. She announced her presence crash tackling everyone in sight at a development day in Denbigh. She has continued to do this ever since in all our games.
Cara, who joined us from Bangor. Again she showed amazing skills, giving us headache as to find her a definitive place, was she to join the front row- she was good there; was she to be amongst the backs because she could run and kick, or was she to play in the back row because she was fearless in winning the ball on the floor.
Bethan, who again joined us last season from Bangor, having played against us before. She came up here as a shy, retiring, unlikely front row player and has grown in stature. This season she led the front row, for the Mermaids and Gogledd Cymru. Her progress has been so dramatic that she was called by the Elite Development Team at the National Centre of Excellence in Cardiff, without any referrals from the coaches, as is normal, but was head hunted by the Welsh coaches to come up for trials for Wales U20s after they viewed a DVD of one of the regional matches.
After much consideration we thought that the player who has progressed the most this season is Bethan Lloyd Jones.

The second trophy was for Coaches Player:

Kaya, who brought to the team her remarkable natural skills as a scrum half, and commitment to the team by attendance at training over the season,
Elin, our last line of defence and who has held firm match after match, against high balls, against fast wingers and the big girls wanting to breach our try line. It has been a joy this season to see Elin stand firm under charging opponents all by herself, pick up the high ball and dart away from clutching hands to take the ball away from danger to attacking positions.
Gwen, who has managed to translate the visions of game plans that the coaches had put together, and make them work on the field.
After much discussion and consideration it was eventually decided the Coaches Player for this season is Elin Royle.

The Third Trophy was for the Player of the Season. We considered the players who have made a contribution to the game and who have become a leader or a role model for other players to follow this season.
We again considered Bethan, who by her hard work and attitude had forced herself into recognition as a player. Bethan is the player we know will be there at every training, at the bottom of every ruck, looking worried and trying to better things she has done well, helping with translating the coaches’ ideas into reality by leading the front row.
Kumari has been at the heart of the team and also the core of the development of the game at Gogledd Cymru. She has brought to the team her knowledge of rugby, the player who can take up matters of rugby law with the referee and puts him under pressure, says the witty comments on the field, neutralising the opposition and helping the team to smile when the going is tough. She is the natural leader of the forwards and the senior figure of the team. She has also contributed to the game off the field. She has completed Level 1 as a referee, Level 1 as a coach and is a player/coach for the Mermaids and Gogledd Cymru. She has become the regular author of the team reports after each of the matches. Her talents in this regard have been recognised and she has now been invited to become the official reporter for the RGC 1404 Senior Team.

We thought hard about the contributions each had made to the image of the game and the team this season.
It was decided that the player of the season is Kumari Tilakawardane.

Flowers were then presented to Ann for her hard work as manager this season.

Kumari then stepped forward to thank Anna for her hard work as assistant coach this season. Anna is leaving the team and club to take up a university place after taking a gap year. She was presented with an engraved glass trophy – a dodgy move as Anna is sometimes rather accident prone!

Several of the team then went out for a well deserved and delicious Sunday lunch. We now look forward to the coming season.