BEN Rhydding Ladies had a big weekend of action and returned from South Wales and the South West with a maximum six-point haul.

With Swansea sitting at the top of the league, Ben Rhydding knew this was going to be a tough game but came out strong winning 3-2, with a goal in the first five minutes, scored by Rachel Doherty.

Swansea came out hard in the second quarter and took control of the game equalising at the end of the first half.

Swansea's strong finishing continued early into the third quarter as they won a dubious stroke - only to be thwarted by Rhyddings' keeper, Charlotte Smith.

After Ben Rhydding regrouped they continued to challenge the hosts and started to look the stronger team.

Among this Swansea won a penalty corner and took the lead.

The visitors, trailing by one goal, put every effort into the last 10 minutes as a period of high Ben Rhydding pressure and determination resulted in Laura Choma deflecting a beautiful connection from captain, Sophie Davies, to equalise.

Within a minute, super speedy Freya Bellamy ran ahead, took on three of the Swansea players and scored to secure the win.

On Sunday, Rhydding crossed back into England to face Gloucester for a game where both side's performance reflected the hard battles that took place the day before for both teams.

The first half went by with no goals for either team until the final whistle when a well-worked penalty corner was converted as a deflection by Kellie Baxter.

This lifted everyone going into the half time team talk and the girls came back out in the second half with a job in mind.

Gloucester, however, came out with the same intentions and managed to equalise within 10 minutes.

Knowing it was all to play for, the Rhydding girls pulled together as a team and another well-worked penalty corner resulted in Rachel Doherty's second goal of the weekend with a lovely connection with Ash Bhogal.

Ben Rhydding then had to fight hard and dig deep to defend the Gloucester onslaught.

There were a few worrying moments but Ben Rhydding coped well under pressure, helped by a man of the match defensive performance by Sarah Bell.

On Saturday the Ladies entertain Durham for their final game of 2019 at 1.30pm.

Meanwhile, Ben Rhydding's men entertained Formby in a niggly and untidy game, going down 2-1 despite having much of the possession and playing the more attractive hockey. They travel to Harrogate on Saturday for a big derby game.