Carmela Morrall is hoping for more high-scoring Loughborough Lightning and Harlequins action when they meet again under the Friday Night Lights (13 March, kick-off: 7.30pm) at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens.
The two sides raised the curtain on the 2025/26 Premiership Women’s Rugby season with a jaw-dropping 94-point extravaganza at The Stoop in October – with the hosts edging the contest 52-42.
Twenty weeks later, and once more under the glare of the floodlights, they go head-to-head in the rematch in Northampton – and Morrall is eagerly anticipating the Round 14 rematch – tickets are still available to purchase by clicking HERE.
“We all saw at the start of the season, we played Quins under the lights and it was an awesome game, it was our highest-scoring game of the year, hopefully there is more of that to come this Friday,” she said. “Both teams like to play attacking rugby and it’s a game I think everyone is looking forward to.
“Every week we have a home game, I get so excited. The pitch and stadium itself is, and this is probably a biased opinion from me, the best in the league. It is such an awesome place to play. The fans bring all the noise.
Morrall has been an ever-present in the Lightning midfield and played a prominent role last time out, providing two brilliant assists for the first and last tries of the game. Her superb break through midfield set Alev Kelter free to open the scores early on, and her inch-perfect cross-field kick for Bulou Mataitoga to catch and ground rescued two match points for the African Violets in the dying seconds of the game.
But for the second match running, Lightning fell short of turning a two-score half-time lead into a victory as Sale Sharks landed four tries inside 20 second-half minutes to claim a 31-29 victory at the visitors’ expense.
“At the end of the game, there was a lot of frustration, we imposed our game for probably 70 minutes but there was a ten-minute block in the second half where we all switched off,” Morrall reflected.
“We know that is not good enough. As a group, we’re always working hard to get better and it is something we have highlighted straightaway this week, that, we cannot be going into games and coming out with a lead in the first half and switching off.
“We are working hard this week to impose that in our training standards and impose that on the pitch in training, so that when we come into those situations in games in the future, starting this Friday, we know it is going to be a close game, we know it is going to be one of those where we have to be switched on for 80 minutes, if we are able to do that in training this week, and put into practice, hopefully that should then flourish in the game.”