Dashing Trudy Snow, a.k.a Snowy, is one of the A Team’s jammers. She has come up through the ranks, reffing at first, then playing for the B Team before establishing herself on DRD A 2 years ago. She gives us her piece on the Dublin A team vs Glasgow Irn Bruisers Saturday 5th November.
Remember, remember!
Almost two years to the day since we last played each other, DRD’s Charter faced off against Glasgow Roller Derby’s ‘Irn Bruisers’ in Shoreline Leisure Centre, Greystones. As one of the skaters who’d played that day in 2014, I was determined we’d get a better result this time and finish 2016 with a win.
The track that morning was like glass. We train on a relatively slippery hall floor but this was something else entirely. Wheels were changed and fingers crossed, but this was going to be challenging for both teams.
We started really well, our packs containing their jammers & our jammers evading their defence, and soon we were up by 100. I generally make a point of trying to avoid looking at the scoreboard (because it can make you change your performance, even subconsciously) but it did catch my eye and I fought to ignore any excited feelings. No lead is safe in roller derby and memories of our loss to Glasgow kept me from feeling in any way complacent.
At the half-time we were leading 172 – 27 and when we huddled up for our team chats, everyone was very positive but knew that we had to give it everything for 30 more minutes. This game was coming at the end of a very long season and an especially tough two months. We’d played several games, some of us had tried out for Team Ireland, and I know that I personally was ready for the off-season.
We headed back out on track and continued to play together and, one mad jam where we had a penalty-spiral aside, we did give it everything.
The game finished DRD 401 – GRD 75.
