Another great report by Keir Harding of Wrexham RFC.
With a howling wind and driving rain at their backs, Wrexham made the long trip to the walled fortress of Caernarfon. It had been a long season, memorable more for the amount of cancelled games than the action on the pitch. Never the less, Wrexham had a league win in their sights. Victory would not be enough, the bonus point win was essential to overtake Ruthin.
The Caernarfon seconds pitch has the kind of incline that if it were a public road, would require a sign warning of the gradient. Wrexham received the kick off with the wind in their faces but looking down the slope at the Caernarfon defence. With a final attempt to inspire the team Wrexham captain Dave Jones shouted “Who are we?”. He was met with silence and his attempt to motivate looked a lot like he had acquired dementia. After petulantly explaining that everyone was supposed the have shouted “Wrexham” Dave wandered away.
Wrexham had brought a heavy pack and had high hopes of dominating the scrum. Sure enough the first few were a rout with Guy Bingham, Dan Rafferty and John Gill tearing the Caernarfon scrum asunder. When Caernarfon suffered a front row injury there were many raised eyebrows and much stroking of chins. With the scrums uncontested, Wrexham lost one of their major weapons. The pack was able to dominate the line out with multiple driving mauls testing the Caernarfon defence. Cillian Paget at outside half got a lot of ball and was able to use the slope to give Wrexham some excellent field position and attacking opportunities.
The first try came 10 minutes in when Matthew Warburton found himself in space in the Caernarfon 22 and scored in the corner. Ryan Foulkes converted.
Wrexham had trouble gathering the kickoffs but after securing ball, Paget again kicked them into the Caer half. While Wrexham had a lot of possession, it was difficult to hang on to with Caer fiercely contesting for the ball at every tackle. Good runs from Jack Ratcliffe and Kerry Powell in the center took them to the 22. John Gill took the ball from a maul and got within inches of the try line. With a Caernarfon defence stretched Wrexham just needed a master tactician to pick out the weak spot and surgically cut through the opposition. Before this could happen Number 8 Keir Harding picked up the ball and fell the 4 cm needed to get over the line. 12 - 0
Again Wrexham struggled with the kick off and again the strength of Pagets kicking and the packs line out dominance got them into space. From a ruck 10 yards out in the right corner, scrum half Will Smith drifted open. Centre Nathan Kaitani came hurtling in like a locomotive, unstoppable at that distance and at that speed. Smith dummied, leading to howls of frustration and appeals to the referee for crossing. Finding a gap in the centre, Kerry Powell sprinted through, ready to take the pass from Smith for an easy try. Smith dummied again leading to howls of frustration and appeals to the referee for crossing. Smith then floated a gentle pass into the hands of Daniel Lloyd who walked over the try line untouched. The final try of the half and the most audacious try of the day.
After changing ends Wrexham found themselves 17-0 up, but still needing another try to win the league. The slope that seemed steep when attacking felt vertical when defending. For the first 20 minutes Wrexham were battered. Pinned in their 22 and unable to kick against the wind, the Caernarfon attack was relentless. Kerry Powell moved into the back row and while chopping down player after player, his jackelling style began to irk the referee and he received his yellow card with 20 minutes remaining.
Wrexham somehow managed to hang on. In a game changing moment, yet another promising Caernarfon attack threatened the Wrexham line. This time Jack Ratcliffe got in the way, intercepted and sprinted up pitch. With their extra man advantage Caer found themselves stuck in the middle of the field while Wrexham held onto some rare possession. Wrexham pushed hard with incisive running from the backline, Nath Kaitani found himself in space and with the added weight of Sion Lloyd Jones crossed the line for Wrexham's bonus point score.
At 22 - 0 Wrexham felt comfortable but were still under threat. Caer resumed the pressure that had kept Wrexham pinned all the half. No sooner had Powell returned from his yellow then captain David Jones was sent from the field, the final straw after a raft of Wrexham penalties in their 22. Wrexham still held on. Once again they were able to clear their lines and found themselves in the Caer 22 with a scrum on the 5 yard line. Harding and Kaitani concocted a masterful move where they would swap positions, Kaitani would pick up from 8 and feed Harding on the crash. It worked perfectly, right up until the point they remembered that the 8 couldn’t pick up on an uncontested scrum. Smith fed Harding from the scrum anyway and while a number of Caer tacklers rushed in full of concern for the feeble old man running towards them, Smith quickly recycled the ball from the ensuing ruck and got himself a well deserved try. 29 - 0. The whistle blew and Wrexham had won the league.
While Wrexham couldn’t have won the game without scoring, it was certainly in the defence that they built their victory. While Caer made a few breaks in broken play, at the set piece the backline was immovable. It was a phenomenal tackling performance from Paget, Kaitani, Powell and Lloyd. The back row supported them well with Warburton in particular being an absolute menace. There wasn’t one break from the back of a scrum that Warburton didn’t snuff out.
Caer voted Keir Harding man of the match but a stewards enquiry has decided that Warburton, Paget and Smith were more likely contenders.
While Wrexham are elated to win the trophy it comes with some sadness too. The Dean Griffiths trophy was named after a Wrexham player who died far too early 18 months ago. Without this tragedy its likely Deano would have been on the field with us (and playing in my bloody position). We’d much rather he’d been there but it is with great pride we take the trophy back home to Wrexham.
The seconds league has been a frustrating place to play in this year. Some weeks players had to be turned away, some weeks we had 8 men and some weeks the message the game was off would ring out as you were packing your kit bag. Wrexham apologise to Ruthin for taking their place at the top of the league and it some ways it seems unfair as Ruthin beat Wrexham in both of their fixtures. Ah well, thems are the breaks. There’s always next year.
Captain Dave Jones said of the victory “At the beginning of the season I had a vision. I shared that with the players and led them like a true warrior. While there were some great individual performances I put it all down to the example I set.”
Director of Rugby at Wrexham Barry Lewis was too drunk to comment.
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