Following report and picture by RGC News and Dafydd Phillips.
RGC continued their pre-season preparations with a try-fest 44- 36 victory over a Dragons U23 side.
The North Wales side opened up the Dragons in the first half with some superb attacking rugby, showing some blistering backline pace.
Head Coach Mark Jones praised his sides work both with and without the ball “As a group we always aim to be better than the last training session, and it is the same for games…so we have improved from last week.”
“When we play I always feel we can play out from both sides of the ruck, and we targeted the breakdown today. So it was good to see us score a couple of tries and create attacking opportunities from the breakdown in that 1st half”
“We can’t rest on what he have done today, and we still need to look at the points conceded. Neath will offer us a different challenge in a couple of weeks so the hard work will continue for the players leading up to September 1st”
The opening score came for the homeside when Taine Basham went over from a driving line before RGC answered back with a penalty from Billy McBryde.
Dragons then had a good spell with the ball, but knocked on close to the tryline. The RGC defence were working hard and continued to stop the Dragons from making inroads to the whitewash.
The Gogs began to build some good attacks and it wasn’t long before they were rewarded with a try. Rhys Williams made the break before the pace of Sam Jones finished the move. McBryde added the extras.
Minute’s later winger Jones claimed his second try, with another great pacey attacking break. Dragons were gifted a try, when Taine Basham intercepted a pass to get his 2nd score. Will Kelly converted to make it a 3 point gap.
The game opened up for the visitors and Efan Jones took full advantage with a run through the defence to cross the whitewash. McBryde again hit a simple conversion.
Soon the score was 25 -12 to RGC when the Gogs fly-half McBryde edged a penalty over.
Along with the attacking flair the work around the breakdown was intense, both in stopping the Dragons attacks but also giving RGC a platform to run the ball quickly.
Try number 4 came from a Dragons poor line-out and Sam Wainwright took full advantage to collect the ball and bulldozer through some tackles to score. McBryde booted the conversion over to make it 32-12 at the break.
The rain came in at the start of the 2nd half, but RGC continued to bring their fire with Efan Jones running from the halfway line to pick up his brace of tries.
RGC weren’t able to reach the intensity in attack in the 2nd half, and the Dragons picked up a couple of tries to get back into the game. The experience of Travis Knoyle was also having an influence.
With the Celtic Cup on the horizon for the Dragons U23 side they began to step up and force a foothold in the game.
The North Wales side picked up the all important try when winger Iolo Evans crashed over the line to get RGC back on the board and McBryde’s kick put his side on the 44 point mark.
In the final 10 minutes RGC’s energy levels were being tested to the limit and the Dragons kept the pressure on.
Deon Smith goes over in the corner, before a second try for Connor Edwards converted by Burgwin made it 36-44 to end the game.
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