THURROCK’S T-Birds are one step away from a return to the Women’s Premiership.

They beat old rivals Waterloo in the Championship Cup – a play-off between the winners of the Championship North and South – and will now face the Premiership’s bottom club Aylesford Bulls on March 29 for the right to play in women’s rugby’s top tier next season.

Their game against Waterloo was played at a neutral venue in Coventry in terrible conditions.

The T-Birds played into the wind in the first half with their World Cup winners Rachael Burford and Kay Wilson providing a threat from the outset.

And they got on the scoreboard in the 10th minute when India Harvey scooped up Zaza Nojoko’s kick, beat one defender and then dragged two others over the line to put her team 5-0 up.

Thurrock continued to pile on the pressure but were stunned by Waterloo on the counter-attack.

From a dropped ball inside the Waterloo 22, they attacked with pace to score a try and a conversion to go 7-5 up.

Undeterred, Thurrock came right back at their opponents and with Waterloo camped on their own 22-yard line, the pressure told when Heather Fisher barrelled her way over the try line.

But the scores were levelled at half time when Waterloo kicked a penalty to bring it to 10-10.

But there was only going to be one winner in the second half as Thurrock pinned their rivals back in their own half.

They took the lead when a flowing move led to Wilson going over in the corner to make it 15-10 before Lalla Vazi finally nailed the last and vital score of the game for 20-10.

T-Birds: Mountjoy, Nichols, Jonga, French, Jordan, Phelps, Vazi, Fisher, Cook, Nojoko, Francis, Harvey, Burford, Corales, Wilson. Bench Hepper, Convoy, Baker, Dyche, Franklin, Radford, Foy.

* A LATE try denied Thurrock’s men’s team of at least a draw against Luton in London One North as they went 24-19 to their visitors from Bedfordshire.

Thurrock fell behind when Luton rolled over from a catch and drive from a line out on the five-yard line. The conversion was good from wide out.

Jake Barrand got Thurrock on the scoresheet with a good penalty, before a mistake at the base of the scrum gave the Luton back row the easy task of falling on the ball, again adding the conversion.

Barrand again reduced the deficit with a penalty, before Reece Durrance scored a try from a Thurrock catch and drive close to the Luton line to reduce the arrears to 14-11 at the break.

Luton started the second half much the better and scored another try this time unconverted, but T’s came straight back with another Barrand penalty before another forward’s try, this time to James Flavin, levelled the scores at 19-19.

But with nine minutes to go Luton scored what turned out to be the winning try.