I was playing tag rugby (non contact) in a social league that consists of mixed gender teams over the last 2 months.

There needs to be 7 players playing per team on the field, 4 guys and 3 girls.For scoring tries, Girls are sub sequentially awarded 3 points, whilst guys are awarded only 1.I understand the logic behind this as it gets the girls more involved in the game and genuinely makes it more fun/interesting.

Each game lasts 40 mins (20 a half).

**The incident**

After making a line break on the pitch, I spotted a girl on my team (Girl A) who was running a support line on the opposite side of the pitch to me. Naturally I wanted her to score and gain 3 points as opposed to my measly 1 point, so I start running towards her direction to shorten the pass distance.Note: During this time she is being chased by a girl (Girl B) on the opposing team.

As I get close enough to Girl A I make the pass to her and accidentally crash into Girl B almost instantly, it completely caught me off guard and sent me and Girl B flying to the ground. (Bear in mind I'm 6"3, 90kg and running flat out, so it was a big collision, but accidental all the same).

As I'm on the ground, a little stunned, I see Girl B in my peripheral lunging at me on the ground whilst cursing something alone the lines of "you f*%^$g b@[st@rd](mailto:st@rd)..".

I immediately knew something was going to happen but not to the extremity of what unfolded.

So after cursing, she clawed at me (leaving two six inch long nail marks on my ribs), then threw and connected a punch to my face with her free hand. She quickly rose from the ground to stand above me, as I was going into the fetal position to try and deflect the initial and future punches. Girl B then delivered 3 kicks, 1 in the back, 1 in the neck and 1 to my head.Girl A rushes over and puts herself between me and Girl B, and receives a punch from Girl B.

Then all hell broke loose as both teams tried to contain Girl B, the entire time she is screaming profanities.As degrading as it is for me, I was completely shook and disoriented from all the commotion.

The referee gave the girl a yellow card (10 mins off the pitch) for her actions, I felt extremely ill and was unable to play on and had to get a HIA (Head Injury Assessment) as a result.

Thankfully, our team won, despite being a man down and this aggressive woman returning to the field of play.

My team were way more furious at the ref's decision then I was, each team member (including 3 of Girl B's team mates), issued a complaint against to the National Rugby Regulatory Organisation (unnamed for anonymity reasons).

It turns out the ref and Girl B play together for the same local woman's team, which is maybe why she didn't give her a red card instantly (any sort of assault, verbal or physical warrants a red card followed by a usually lengthy ban in this particular type of Rugby).The regulatory body changed Girl B's yellow card to a red card, after a review, and a 2 week ban.To put this in perspective, I received my only ever red card for cursing at a ref (in full contact rugby) whilst I was on the ground, and received a 4 match ban which ended up being over a 6 week duration.

A few things to highlight:

I am a very gentle, chivalrous guy (the girls on my team joke about this as I called them all "Lady" when I wasn't very familiar with there names), and although I can be competitive I would never intentionally physically assault someone, let alone a girl, and do not think I deserved that kind of retaliation.

Collisions happen all the time and are usually shrugged off in good spirits.

If I had of retaliated to a girl as she did to me, I would be banned for life, probably in prison, most likely facing assault charges, and definitely have the shit kicked out of me.

Edit: Spelling