Ruth Campbell plays for Naas RFC U12’s and this is her account of playing in the Magic Half Time Mini’s game against Carlow RFC during Leinster V Wasps on Sunday…

I was very excited about playing for Naas at the RDS. I am the only girl on the U12 team. Carlow also had a girl on their team who made a great tackle during the match. Everyone on the whole team was so excited before the match! 

Four of the other U12 players in Naas also go to Killashee National School like me.
I also train with the Naas U 14 girls’ team on a Wednesday evening at the club.

Rugby means a lot in my family. My brothers play it too and we all cheer for Leinster.

When we got to the RDS arena the teams were practicing. One of the kicks hit a dad reading the newspaper in our stand. 

Brian O’Driscoll came out with a TV camera before the match.

My granddad told me that it was okay to have butterflies before a match. He said butterflies make you play better. I didn’t have any butterflies but my coach Peter said I still played very well.

The game was great. Peter and Declan our coaches said we played really well. They said we have to play like that at every game.

For the game we had a real ref. He was wearing a yellow top. We scored two tries. Conor O’Brien scored our first try and Joshua Hickey scored our second. In the end Carlow were near our try line for a long time. We had to push them back and tackle them for ages. Then they scored and the game was over. 

After the referee blew his whistle the Naas and Carlow teams all ran, with him, past the big tent stand and around the north end of the pitch.  All the supporters cheered for us.  That was great fun.

After the game we received Leinster treat bags with popcorn, a drink, a school ruler, a pencil and some rubbers.

My mom, dad and two brothers were at the match and said they were very proud of me.