Richmond Women have fallen to their eighth defeat of the 2019/20 season, going down 36-5 to a rampant Wasps Ladies at the Athletic Ground.

In front of a strong home crowd, Richmond showed glimpses of their exciting ability, forcing the visitors to defend on their line for long periods in the second half, but ultimately failed to capitalise on their opportunities to hand Wasps their fifth win of the Tyrrells Premier 15s season.

The visitors, who remain fifth in the league, opened the scoring in the 15th minute through Abby Dow, before adding another two tries to Harriet Millar-Mills and Dow again to take a 17-0 lead into the half-time break.

Richmond started the second half with impressive energy as they tried to work their way back into the match, flankers Libby Povey and the later named Player of the Match Grace Moore making a strong impact with a number of hard-hitting runs and tackles.

But again Wasps looked the more likely to score and chalked up try number four in the 47th minute with fullback Sofia Rolfi dazzling her way through the Richmond defence. Her try was converted by Lizzie Goulden.

Down 24-0, Richmond then spent the next ten minutes marching towards the Wasps line.

In a hugely positive period for the home side, Richmond managed to cross the line on three occasions but on all three were held up by the extremely solid Wasps defence. A frustrating patch for Richmond which eventually resulted in Wasps gaining possession back and then driving their way up the pitch, with scrum-half Lucy Nye breaking through to run away and score their fifth try of the afternoon.

Richmond finally broke the Wasps defence in the 71st minute with the club legend Laura Kapo crossing the white-wash from close range. Her try was met with a huge roar from the Richmond faithful in the stands; however Jess Wooden couldn't add the extras from out wide.

With five minutes left, Wasps scored their sixth and final try with Claudia Macdonald snatching the score after breaking through the Richmond defence.

The 36-5 score line didn't reflect the close nature of the contest but Wasps were always in control of the match and deserved their win.

Richmond's Player of the Match Grace Moore said post-game: "There are lots of positives to build on and take forward from today's match. We proved that we can put the opposition under huge pressure but we need to make sure we do that for the full 80 minutes, rather than just short periods. We have to keep building, each game is a new challenge and we need to bring that intensity and positivity into the next fixture. Saracens at home on Saturday is going to be a huge

match for us but we're excited by the opportunity and can't wait to put the Richmond shirt on again in front of our fans."

Meanwhile, the Richmond Women's 2nd XV fell just short against the Wasps 2nd XV in the Development League, going down 5-0 in an extremely tight fixture.

Richmond’s next Tyrrells Premier 15s fixture is against Saracens Women next Saturday 21st December at the Athletic Ground (KO 3:00pm). Tickets are £5 and can be purchased at the gate.