Rampant Ladies seal semi-final spot

The hosts were immediately on the offensive in Sunday’s last-eight clash, and led 5-0 inside five minutes after fly-half Evie Tonkin conjured up an early score.

A second try followed soon afterwards, full-back Ailish Clear making a break up the right and then touching down.

A break from centre Caroline Cockshott led to a third try, Helena Landau converting for 17-0.

With 25 minutes gone, some fine work by the forwards saw Ellie Ward stopped just short, but when the ball was moved into the hands of the backs, Tonkin applied the finishing touch to claim her second touchdown.

Landau again added the extras to put her team 24-0 ahead.

Valley attempted to launch an attack of their own, but following a turnover, Rose Jay and Tonkin combined to send Jess Wild over the whitewash.

With the interval in sight, there was not only time for Cockshott to make a second break away to score, but also for Tonkin to complete her hat-trick. Both tries were converted by Landau to make the score 45-0 at half-time.

Valley seemed refreshed after the break, but it was obvious Harrogate had more to give and it wasn’t long before centre Sophie Harker showed her presence on the pitch by handing off two players before scoring to the left of the posts.

The tries kept coming, and Tonkin picked out Cockshott, who stepped her way through the last line of defence to register a treble of her own.

Valley began to cause the home side some problems as they picked out a number of gaps in the Harrogate defence, but they were once again turned over before they could do any damage.

Back in possession, the hosts scored again to take a 62-0 lead when Tonkin set up Gemma Stanish and Landau booted over the extras.

Late tries from Maisie Barnett and Sarah Jayne Pritchard then rounded off the scoring to set up a home semi-final with East London Ladies on March 12.