Player of the Match Amy MacNamara led the way as Dalkeith completed an amazing double success on Sunday.
The Midlothian side won the Arnold Clark Women’s East Midlands Aspiring League earlier in the campaign and, on the back pitches at Murrayfield, they backed it up by winning the women’s national Bowl as they defeated Strathaven 43-12 in the final.
Both teams can be proud of how they performed and they gave the sizeable crowd plenty to cheer about, They were also paraded onto the Hive Stadium pitch at half-time during the Scotland-Italy Guinness Women’s Six Nations match later in the day.
Dalkeith picked up the trophy at that point in front of the crowd of 5,029 and MacNamara, the scrum-half who previously won the Bowl competition with Broughton back in 2014, said: “We played Marr last year and after losing that final we wanted so badly to get back to this stage again and show people what we could do.
“From that Marr game we took a lot of positive and after that we trained harder, we got stronger and we got fitter as a team heading into 2024/25 and it all paid off.
“We play with a lot more structure now and we have good players throughout the team now in all positions and backs who know how to finish chances off.
“I really could not be any prouder of this team.
“I had played rugby before and then retired, but when Dalkeith started up this team I thought ‘why not give it another go’ and I am so glad that I have.
“We play as a team, we social as a team, we laugh as a team, we cry as a team and it could not be better. Dalkeith is a great community club and is how rugby clubs should be and I am excited for the future of the women’s team.”
MacNamara scored two tries for Dalkeith in the final with Lynsay Halliday, Kira Turner, Leigh Bell, Claire Brunton, Rachael McIntosh also crossing. Bell converted four of them.
Fanny Helleux and Erin Hipson scored the Strathaven tries with Lyndsey Gavin converting one for a team, like Dalkeith, who are going from strength-to-strength.
The rest of the women’s nation finals take place alongside all the men’s ones at Silver Saturday on April 19.
The Guinness Women’s Six Nations runs from March 22 to April 26 and, next up at home, Scotland are at Hive Stadium in round five versus Ireland on the final day – get tickets here.
Dalkeith are pictured – thanks to Scottish Rugby and Amy MacNamara is pictured – thanks to Mark Brown
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