Loughborough Lightning’s young players ’repaid the faith’ placed in them in the opening round Premiership Women’s Rugby 2025/26 loss to Harlequins.
That was the view of Head Coach Nathan Smith, who picked 20-year-olds Lucy Calladine and Carmela Morrall, Haineala Lutui (19) and Becky Boyd (21) in his starting line-up at The Stoop, while Amelia Williams (20) made a big impact from the bench in the 52-42 Round 1 loss.
“We keep talking about the Loughborough University and Loughborough Lightning pathway and how we bring players through to the first team, but if you don’t start using them, there’s no use in having it,” said Smith. “I thought there were some exceptional performances from some young players who stepped up and repaid the faith that the programme has put in them.
“I thought Lucy Calladine was exceptional. Cam [Morrall] as vice-captain really shone and had some lovely moments. Ala, a 19-year-old, making her PWR debut, went the distance and had some big moments and then there was Amelia Williams’ try.
Lightning went in at the break two points ahead courtesy of tries from Calladine, Sadia Kabeya, Bo Westcombe-Evans and Alicia Maude.
The hosts, however, got on top in the third quarter, and while Loughborough added further tries through Williams’ long-distance finish and Kathryn Treder, the visitors had to settle for only a try-scoring bonus point for their endeavours – despite a two or even five-point haul still being on the table with five minutes remaining.
“I am happy with the performance,” said Smith. “Obviously conceding this many points is not where I want to be, however, what I will say is, Quins were exceptional at capitalising on our errors and converting them into points. Once we get a bit more continuity as a team, we can cut out those errors, we can cut down the points that we concede.
“The good thing is I am not throwing people into the fight. It’s almost like I’ve got to pull some back. We played from deep against Quins and were extremely brave with our decision making, but I think we need to understand momentum a little bit more and evaluate risk/reward in certain areas of the field. I was impressed with how expansive we were at times.”
A year on from rupturing her ACL at The Stoop in last season’s edition of this fixture, Red Roses winger Westcombe-Evans crossed the line for her 35th Lightning try.
Of the young winger, Smith said: “Bo was extremely unlucky to pick up the injury she had, I believe if she had not been injured, she would’ve been involved in the World Cup squad. She has got so much motivation to really kick on and get back in the Red Roses team. I am chuffed to bits that she scored and hopefully it builds up confidence within her game.”
Lightning return to cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens on Sunday 2 November (kick-off: 1pm) – tickets are available by clicking HERE – to face a Sale Sharks side that kicked off their campaign with a bonus point win against Leicester Tigers on Saturday.
“Myself and the girls are really looking forward to getting back out there at cinch Stadium,” said Smith. “It’s always a good contest against Sale and they have recruited well in the summer too.
“There’s going to be plenty of competition for places this week, I am looking forward to a really strong week of training so we’re flying into the weekend as we look to build on the positives of the performance against Quins.”