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Colwyn Bay U7s V Ruthin U7s Match Reports
Colwyn Bay 6-Ruthin 6
Colwyn Bay 7-Ruthin 6
A great defensive display from Colwyn Bay U7s earned them a 7-6 win over Ruthin.
James Copeland helped himself to seven tags - including five in a row - and scored a superb individual try in their second game of the day. Jamie Cosgrove and Soir Marsden both scored two great tries each and five tags, while Joseph McKenna and Lewis McLaughlin completed the scoring.
Zac Roberts, McKenna, Thomas Roberts and Theo all took three tags each, while Cai Curtis and McLaughlin got one tag apiece.
In their opening game, Colwyn Bay U7s drew 6-6 with Ruthin.
William Healy scored four tries and bagged four tags with further tries from Owen Opie and Leo Smith. Owen Opie also took 4 tags while Chay Bonnington, Henry Battersby and Niall
Richardson all got one tag.
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Glyn Ceiriog Under 15s/14s 10 points v Clwb Rygbi Dinbych U14s 26 points
Sunday 26 February
Dinbych’s 14s notched up a brave victory against a Glyn Ceiriog side that was mostly made up of Under 15 players. In a game, played in perfect conditions at Glyn Ceiriog’s adopted home at Llangollen Rugby Club, the visitors outpointed the hosts by 3 tries to 2, with Jake Jones, Ynyr Clwyd and Josh Morris all crossing for Dinbych and Gruff Roberts adding a conversion.
Glyn Ceiriog’s advantage in size and age was evident from the start as they put Dinbych under pressure and their pack drove forward towards the line. Glyn Ceiriog’s prop crossed for their opening unconverted try. Glyn Ceiriog continued to pressure but Dinbych’s defence held out. Flanker Wil Morris was prominent in defence with some crunching tackles stopping the powerful home back row from making inroads. Wing Jake Vaughan Thomas was then the victim of a dangerous tackle that properly led to a home player being yellow-carded. Fortunately Vaughan Thomas was able to continue and the incident seemed to spur on the Dinbych players. Play was driven into the Glyn Ceiriog 22 metre zone and after another infringement by the hosts, Dinbych took a quick tap penalty. The ball reached number 8 Jake Jones who crashed over for an unconverted try to level the score at 5-5. Dinbych were now in the ascendancy and on several occasions the back line looked threatening but were frustrated by a series of handling errors.
After a lecture from the coaching team at the interval, Dinbych opened the second half in far more composed fashion. They were soon rewarded as some excellent driving rugby from the pack saw the ball released out to the backs again. Replacement centre Rhys Lloyd made some good ground before passing to Ynyr Clwyd to cross for Dinbych’s second and to give the visitors the lead at 5-10.
The physical battle continued but Dinbych were up to the challenge. They again counter attacked and Glyn Ceiriog found themselves under sustained pressure on their own 5 metre line. Eventually Josh Morris got a foot to a loose ball and hacked it forwards. The hosts managed to reach the ball first but fumbled the clearance, allowing Morris to fall on the spilled ball for Dinbych’s third. Gruff Roberts’ well taken conversion gave Dinbych a more comfortable 5-17 lead with three quarters of the game gone. Glyn Ceiriog sought to get themselves back in the game and used their strength to drive over for a second unconverted try. The hosts continued to look for a leveller but Dinbych held firm and showed great discipline to prevent any further scoring opportunities for the hosts.
Although the points tally was one of Dinbych’s lowest this season, this was a hugely impressive result against a physically much bigger side and one the U14s will learn much from. Next week they complete the recent run of away fixtures with a journey to COBRA in mid Wales. Dinbych were victorious 41-5 in the home encounter earlier in the season, but know that COBRA will be a tougher proposition on their own turf.
It is still possible to vote for Dinbych Under 14s in the SWALEC Junior Stars Competition to win a training session with the Welsh team. Voting is still open until midnight on Friday 2nd March at www.swalec.co.uk/rugby
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Colwyn Bay U10s 33 – Bangor U10s 21
Tries
Josh Jakeman 2
Jake Palmer-Reid 1
Owen Phillips 2
Conversions
Ollie Gibson 2
Owen Phillips 1
Jake Palmer-Reid 1
Colwyn Bay U10s 21 – Bangor U10s 54
Tries
Kai MacDonald 1
Matthew Millband 1
Morgan Thomas 1
Conversions
Thomas Opie 3
Colwyn Bay’s efforts in training paid dividends with a fine victory 33-21 in the first match against Bangor. A couple of great plays saw two team tries with the ball passing through 4 or 5 sets of hands before the tries were scored.
Due to number two games were played, which gave Colwyn Bay chance to field a development team in the second game. They showed some great attacking rugby and gained valuable match experience. There was an excellent performance from Kai McDonald who scored his first try for Colwyn Bay. Bangor ran out 54-21 winners.
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Colwyn Bay Under 12s 17 v Bangor U12 10
Inspiring leadership from Seb Marshall took the game to Bangor right from the first whistle. The Bay tried hard to keep their structure under lively response from the opposition with Ruby Roberts leading the charge, making hard yards and setting up good ball distributed by Will Opie to the talent outside which after ten minutes lead to Peter Jones at fly half, taking the ball blind side, running through the opposing back row and through the flailing Bangor backs, showing great speed and persistence to run three quarters of pitch to score a wonderful try under the posts.
The Bay dominated the second quarter with Seb Marshall and Connor Williams driving and off loading well, setting up clean ball for the backs to spread the ball wide through the powerful runs of Sion Edwards, linking with the excellent running of Nye Michael to show his pace and his determination to score a wonderful try.
In the second half the Bay came out once again determined to play to structured rugby with Oliver Thomas following Seb Marshall's lead, driving through the centre of rucks and mauls, disrupting and once again setting up good ball. This led to one of the best passing phases of the season through the hands of Will Opie, Sion Edwards, Sam Earl Jones , to the eventual clinical finishing of rookie Nye Michael, who took his second try to compliment his all round assertive performance.
In the fourth quarter, Bangor threw all they had at the Bay and despite excellent defensive work from Will Head and Nathan Jones, exposed some weak tackling by some of the Bay forwards on two occasions bringing the visitors to within one score. In the last 5 minutes, Bay became collectively more resolute in defence and repelled the definitive Bangor attacks, clinging onto their lead in a similar way to their international heroes of the previous day winning the game 17-10, gaining redress for their defeat by Bangor earlier this season.
Player of the match goes to Ruby Roberts for a combination of power play and clear thinking in off loading and creating continuity. Well done Ruby, an excellent performance.
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