Gloucester-Hartpury were missing Stratford, who is pregnant with her first child, as well as scrum-half Natasha Hunt, number eight Alex Matthews, wing Jade Shekells, back-row Kate Williams and full-back Emma Sing all through injury for Sunday’s match.
But they still went into the game as overwhelming favourites against Trailfinders, a team that only joined the PWR in 2023.
They took the lead at Kingsholm – again rebranded Queensholm for the match – but conceded four tries, giving themselves what Murphy called “a huge mountain to climb” during the second half.
While they came back through tries from Lund and Georgia Brock, they narrowly lost to miss out on their first final since 2022 and the chance to win a record fourth title – something no team has yet done.
Murphy took over as head coach at the start of this season and said the young players in the side will learn from the experience and come back better players.
“This year’s been amazing, I’ve learned so much, the group have learned so much about each other,” Murphy said.
“We’ve got so many youngsters coming through like Molly Bunker, El Pearce, Georgia Iona getting big game experience. That will sit with them for a long time.
“But next time we’re in a position like this – which we will be – we’ll have that experience on their side. They’re not the ones turning round going, ‘what do we do here?’, they’re the ones [saying] ‘this is what we need to do here’.
“They won’t recognise that for a while but that’s exactly what’s happened.”
