Many thanks to all those clubs who have kindly supplied match reports from their weekend games.
If your club would like their match reports to be uploaded to this web-site, please email them to gwcymru1@aol.com and any pictures that you may have.
*****
COBRA Youth 59 v Colwyn Bay Youth 7
Following report kindly supplied by Colwyn Bay RFC
The Bay travelled to mid-Wales with a young squad and gave a spirited second half performance after a difficult first half conceding six tries.
The visitors raised their game in the second period challenging the opposition at the scrums and at the breakdowns and their efforts were rewarded when captain and centre Lloyd Jones intercepted a pass in the COBRA half to score under the posts with Pat Atkinson adding the extras.
The home side scored another three tries to seal their deserved victory with a disappointed Bay side looking for their first victory at Meifod for several seasons.
The Bay enjoyed the exceptional hospitality that the COBRA club are renowned for where the man of the match was awarded to winger Shaun Preece for his commited tackling, and ‘Dick of the Day went to flanker Jordan Wilson, both of whom failed to beat their counterparts in the post-match celebrations.
Following report kindly supplied by COBRA RFC
The Jukes show returns to Cae COBRA!
With 4 tries to man of the match Jack and seven conversions to younger brother Harry the Jukes boys were on fire to help seal a comprehensive win over under strength Colwyn Bay..
As with many clubs at this time of the year with youth team players off to university and the first bout of injuries and even early coughs and colds Colwyn Bay honoured their fixture with us with 14 players. Thanks to the coachng staff for not postponing the game.
So with each team fielding 7 in the scrum there was some extra space on the picth for the home team to exploit.
The scoring was metronome in the first half with 5 unanswered tries and 4 conversions.
So with five players sitting on the sideline it was a good opportunity to blood some young players. But even this didn't completely disrupt the afternoon.
Four tries to one in the second half and in for an early shower.
Man of the match obvious - Jack Jukes but close behind him was his brother Harry Jukes with 7 conversions and Captin Huw Worthington with threH tries. Not to be out done on the score sheet was new boy Luke Richardson and 2nd year youth player Dom Moran.
However let's not forget that the spoils go to the victors and points scorers but it is a team game and there was some really good team performances throughout the game. some excellent off loading and a desire to run as much as we could from every part on the pitch. Well done boys.
The next game though promises to be a whole new ball game - Llangefni away!!
Let's hope that we see some similar skill on display when we travel north in two weeks time.
*****
Old Tylerians 15 v Rhayader RFC 53
Rhayader RFC ran in a total of eight tries in this convincing victory on Saturday down in the Gwent Valleys. Rhayaders second convincing win in as many weeks shows what they are capable of with a near full strength squad with 14 tries scored in New Head Coach's Bobby Williams' two games in charge.
Rhayader raced into an early 17-0 lead with tries from brothers Matt Boore and Stephen Boore, with younger brother Matt adding two conversions and a penalty. However the away side were pegged back to 17-15 almost as quicky as Old T's mustered some sort of a comeback.
With Rhayader going over again soon after through their very own try machine Jamie Naylor, again converted by Matty Boore, the Radnorshire team never looked back.
Further tries followed with captain Stephen Boore grabbing his second, Jamie Naylor adding two more to complete his hat-trick and super sub Mike Cameron coming off the bench for the second week to add two further tries, Matty Boore added another couple of conversions which pushed Rhayader over the 50 points mark.
With the return of the experienced Tommy Walsh who picked up the man of the match award and the ever improving Matty Boore at number 10, Rhayader seem to be making their mark in their inaugural season in Division 7.
Next up for Rhayader is the tough visit of high flying Division 5 East side RTB Ebbw Vale in the Swalec Bowl on Saturday, kick off 2.00pm.
*****
Llangollen 18 v Abergele 47
Following report first appeared on the Abergele RFC web-site
A Game of Contrasting Halves
Bonus point win for the Green Army after a slow and sloppy start.......
Abergele came away from Llangollen with a bonus point victory, but the game was a close affair until the final few minutes.
A notoriously slow start saw Abergele fall behind to a penalty from the hosts, but quickly struck back with a penalty of their own from fly half, Gaz Evans. After some territorial play from both sides, it was Abergele who took the lead when prop, Alan Wraight, powered over from close range.
However, the lead was short lived after some poor tackling from a number of Abergele players allowed
Llangollen's full back to sprint from inside his own half to score in the corner. This lifted th men from Tower Field and they kept up the pressure on Gele, but some stubborn defence and the big boot of Gaz Evans kept them at bay.
On the occasions that Abergele did leave their half, they made sure thy came back with something, captain Joe Lavin choosing posts over the corner and Gaz Evans kicking 3 more penalties to Llangollen's 1. A scrappy half ended 17-14 to Gele.
Coach, Jimmy Waring, is not a man that is renowned for holding back when required and the players were left in o doubt as to what was needed in the 2nd half after a version of Alex Ferguson's hair dryer treatment was handed out.
With the words still ringing in their ears, Gele's players immediately began to take on Llangollen up front and got the rewards for their hard work when, hooker, Alun Pritchard reached out to score from the base of
a ruck. This was quickly followed by a 3rd try by inside centre, Danny Lawrence, who finished off a swift move involving both forwards and backs.
The sudden scoring seemed to put Llangollen off their stride and they had 2 players placed in the sin bin in quick succession for blatant infringements at the breakdown. This didn't stop them being dangerous on the counter attack and on more than one occasion they caused Abergele problems with their pace.
The Swordsmen weren't to be stopped from gaining their bonus point though and after several failed attempts to breach the Llangollen line by the forwards, Danny Lawrence, arrived at pace from deep and used his 'bulk' to burst over the line. Substitutions were now being made with Perry Clark replacing Mark Dilworth, Chris Meyers in for Gareth Beach and Gethin Jones coming on for the ever impressive Llion Mortimer.
Llangollen did manage one more penalty and continued to cause problems, but even with 2nd row, Simon Hughes sent to the sin bin Abergele still managed to squeeze in another try when replacement winger Perry Clark flew down the touch line to score in the corner.
This was a good win for Gele who were missing a number of 1st team regulars, but there is still a lot to be done on the training pitch if they are going to challenge at the top this season. Next up is an away trip to Bangor in the Cup. Gareth Evans capped off a fine performance with the boot, scoring an impressive 22 points in the process.
*****
Llangefni 26 v Bethesda 25
Following report first appeared on the Bethesda RFC web-site
With a number of regulars missing Bethesda were looking for that first victory of the season against a side in a similar position.
It was the home side that took advantage of the situation leading by 13 points to 5 at the interval. Once more, Bethesda failed to capitalise on goal kicking opportunities while Carwyn Milburn, Llangefni's outside half, displayed all his kicking skills.
Although Darren Brace, Bethesda's replacement ouside half, kicked a penalty early in the second half, Llangefni were 23 points to 8 ahead at the beginning of the last quarter of the match.
During the final 11 minutes Bethesda scored 3 tries as the Llangefni players ran out of gas and the visitors displayed their fitness. Unfortunately, only one try was converted leaving Bethesda short of Llangefni's total.
However, Bethesda came away from Cae Smyrna with 2 bonus points - one for scoring 4 tries and one for being within 7 points of the victor's score. Bethesda scorers were Darrren Brace (penalty goal and conversion), David Buckley, Gavin Owen, Dylan Hughes and Huw Williams (1 try each).
Bethesda will have to solve their goal kicking problem soon because all the hard work of the forwards is going unrewarded.
Bro Ffestiniog will be the visitors to Dôl Ddafydd next Saturday.
*****
Cobra 38 v Shotton Steel 8
Following report first appeared on the COBRA web-site
Cobra secure the bonus point win
Cobra rebounded from a poor performance against Denbigh to claim a bonus point win at home to Shotton Steel. The scoring was opened by the away side who slotted over a penalty after Cobra transgressed at a ruck. From then on Cobra dominated the score board through a try from industrious flanker Rich Reed combined with a conversion and 3 penalties from out side half Llew Williams.
The first half also saw Shotton reduced to 14 men, after Shotton spilled the ball centre Iwan Vaughan kicked through only to be scythed down when he was about to gather to score a try, the referee having no choice but to show a red card for reckless and dangerous play.
With the visitors reduced to 14 Cobra pushed for a bonus point win and further indiscipline saw Shotton reduced to 13 when their lock forward was shown a yellow for back chat. After been camped on the Shotton line for large period Cobra’s persistence paid off and winger Rhodri Davies and centre Iwan Vaughan both crossed the white wash with Llew Williams again proving clinical from the tee.
With more than 20 minutes remaining Cobra were guilty of complacency and began to let the tempo of the game slip, to their credit Shotton refused to give up and began to punish the lack of intensity on offer from the home side. Their just reward was a well worked try that kicked some life back in to the home side. With time elapsed Cobra attacked and after much determined work from the forwards great passing from the backs resulted in Winger Rhodri Davies touching down in the corner to secure the bonus point win.
Cobra now look forward to hosting the other promoted side Llangollen next weekend in Meifod.
Cobra: N Williams C Davies A Evans R Evans A Williams L Bright A Davies R Rees A Williams L Williams I Vaughan F Roberts R Jones R Davies M Jones, reps C Oakley O Morris M Griffiths A Roberts.
*****
Denbigh 15 v Llandudno 13
Following report first appeared on the Llandudno RFC web-site
Three missed penalties in the final ten minutes of play, brought the winning streak to an end.
Denbigh from the start put pressure on the Llandudno line for a long period of time, but a solid defence kept them at bay until eventually they were awarded a penalty which Tom Seddon converted.
Llandudno slowly came back into the game and from some pressure the homeside conceded a penalty with Lloyd Griffith converted. The match was very evenly contested in the forwards and backs, but Llandudno lost there top try scorer James Gregson in the second half with a shoulder injury which had an effect on there attacking options.
A strike against the head at a set scrum saw flanker Tom Roberts power over to take the lead with LLoyd Griffith adding the two points from the conversion. The home side now came back with a try by Dion Howatson after a driving maul took them over the try line. The score was now finely balance with only two points between the sides.
Lloyd Griffith increased the lead for Llandudno with another penalty, but the try of the match came from the home side with a flowing movement from within there own half saw there centre touchdown, with Tom Seddon converting.
For the remaining fifteen minutes of play it was all Llan inside of the home half play,but being unable to cross the try line, during this period they were awarded three penalties two of which were well within kicking distance of the posts, however this was not to be and resulted in the home side running out the winners in very evenly contested match at the top of Division Two Table.
Supporter Comment, “Yet again we gave away a total of twelve penalties,a number of them for back chatting the referee,this needs to be addressed by the coaching team”.
Next Saturday away at Bethesda in the first round of the North Wales Cup, KO 2.30.
*****
Flint 18 v Welshpool 15
Following report kindly supplied by Flint RFC
Flint got their just rewards for the 2nd half performance they put in against visitors Welshpool by snatching victory in the 80th minute through the boot of fly half Damian Goss, to give this young and ever improving side a much needed morale boosting win after two disappointing results in Swalec Div 3 North, which now makes their record so far this season 2 wins and 2 loses.
Flint gave themselves the worst possible start to their encounter by letting in an unconverted try after 5 mins from a Welshpool scrum 10 metres out from their own try line due to some sloppy tackling, the disappointing start didn’t deter this inexperienced Flint side and after they’d gathered themselves from behind the posts they forced their way back in the game due to some sterling work from the youthful pack where debutant tight head prop Tom Hewitt made a dynamic entry to 1st team rugby, giving Flint the much needed platform that had been missing this season and at 20 yrs old Hewitt finds himself the oldest member of the Flint front row.
With the set pieces being pretty even at this stage, the game was being fought in the loose and with Newtown ref Steven Rowlands picking Welshpool up at offside in the ruck, they eventually gave a penalty away in front of their own posts which Goss dually slotted over making the score line 3-5, even though Flint were battling hard to stay in contention with Welshpool with some good defence work and last gasp tackles Flint were still missing first up tackles allowing Welshpool the ascendancy.
Welshpool exploited this weakness to cross over for two more unconverted tries making the score line 3-15. The young guns of Flint were not for giving up and just before half time (and before getting sin binned by the ever present referee Steven Rowlands for an incident in the tackle), centre Sam Parry who had been running some hard lines all afternoon crashed over for a typical centre‘s try therefore going into half time 10-15 after the conversion by Goss.
With the boost of a try before the half, Flint went into the 2nd half with their tails up dominating from the whistle, especially through the forwards where they have developed major ball carriers in inspirational captain Mitch Martin, Loz Rogers, Jake Shill and Alec Airley and with Billy Forrester and Tom Hewitt doing the hard graft of cleaning up any loose ball and making 50-50 balls their own the Flint pack were in overdrive.
The forwards dominance allowed scrum-half Toby Norman a solid platform to feed to fly-half Goss (who had an excellent afternoon with the boot out of hand as well as from the kicking tee), who kept Flint in Welshpool territory for most of the 2nd half. With Flint still dominant in the loose, front rowers Shill and Forrester drove over the line in a combined effort to score - with the debate going on till the early hours on who had control of the ball when grounded, the consensus said loose head prop Shill edged it .
With Goss missing the conversion from out wide the score line read 15 a piece, Flint were well and truly back in the game, but then Flint lost their general in the battlefield No 8 and skipper Martin (who had been carrying a leg injury from the previous week, but he did well to soldier on for as long as he did). On the exit of Martin came the call for the reinforcements, in the guise of the “40 something’s“: 2nd row Dave Hughes (for Martin) and hooker Alan Hewitt (for Forrester).
The introduction of the experienced Hughes and Hewitt kept the buoyant Flint pack calm and focused, eventually forcing the penalty that gave Flint their deserved victory via the steady boot of Goss.
Flint will have a break from the league next week, but will be in action in the SWALEC bowl competition away, to Bangor University.
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