Rewind | Previous opening matches at The Fly
On Monday, the opening games for The Fly Sixes Lacrosse 2025 at Blackheath Rugby Club will be revealed! In anticipation of next week’s announcement, let’s take a look back at some of the previous opening matches across the last four years of The Fly, and see what we can learn about their future fortunes!
2024
Last year’s opening fixture of The Fly was a men’s fixture that was a replay of the 2023 Men’s final, pitting champions Hustle, against contenders Forge.
A confident Hustle went out into the lead and held a three-goal advantage with only three minutes to play, but Forge turned the screw late on to keep the Manchester crowd on the edge of their seats right until the final seconds.
At 13-12, Jamie Powell had a long-range opportunity to tie the game with just seconds on the clock, but his effort went wide and the reigning champions got their defence underway with a win.
However, the opening fixture would also go on to be the final clash of the men’s competition as the two sides renewed rivalries weeks later in the Championship game.
And once more it was a tight game, but this time Forge avenged the opening day defeat with a comeback 15-13 win to claim victory and their first ever Men’s Championship at The Fly, denying the reigning Men’s Champions Hustle a successive win.
2021
The first match ever contested at The Fly! Forge and Hustle Women took each other on in the first ever official Sixes Lacrosse match to be played in England.
At Lilleshall National Sports Centre in 30 degree heat, the two sides took each other on and Forge displayed the new possibilities and tactics associated with the Sixes format to earn the better of their opposition.
Employing a novel tactic that demonstrated the new nature of the game, Forge left an attacker up the field unmarked and relied on the booming accurate clears of Emilie Chandler to catch the Hustle side short and it worked to great effect.
A 22-13 win, led by Ellie Jones scoring nine goals, Forge went all the way to the final, but were defeated by an all-conquering Swift team who remained unbeaten throughout the entire first year competition and crowned the first ever champions of The Fly.
2023
2023 gave us a thrilling start to the action which set the tone for the rest of the competition to follow!
As The Fly headed to Rosslyn Park for the first time, Hustle and Swift Women served up a true high-scoring thriller for the fans to enjoy.
It originally looked as though it would be a routine opening day win for Hustle as they opened up a 17-12, five-goal advantage going into the final quarter.
However, Swift Women, spearheaded by the charges of Lottie Robertson and Anna Neville, who would finish the game with seven and five goals respectively, were not about to give things up easily.
They helped their Swift side surge back to tie the game up at 18-18 with around a minute to play and it was truly anyones to win at that point.
But Hustle regained their composure, and it was Izzy Brand who would take the headlines, scoring the game winning goal, Hustle then denying Swift the opportunity to take the game into overtime and sealing the win.
Neither team would ultimately come out victorious that year, Hustle losing a one-goal game to Forge in the semi-final, and Swift also being defeated by Forge to finish runner-up.