Trebanos 13 Pontardawe 19
Saturday 16th February 2008.
Once again Trebanos were on the losing side of this familiar scoreline, the team’s shortcomings being brutally exposed by our near neighbours and rivals. Pontardawe got off to a flying start, Matthew Thomas scoring for N Jones to add the conversion within minutes of the start of the game.
Facing a much heavier pack, the home forwards took the game to the visitors and spent some time in the their half, but a promising move saw Amer Hussein flattened with a blatant shoulder charge which went unpunished by the referee. From the ensuing melee over the ball, it was in fact the home No8 James Erasmus who was harshly penalised after being pulled off his feet by Pontardawe players.
From the lineout on the Trebanos 10metre line, the visitors lost the ball and it was, for the only time during the game, spun quickly along the home back line only for the pass inside to the supporting Lee Pickman to go to ground. That sadly was the only glimpse of the Trebanos line moving smoothly. The pack continued to push their bigger opponents all the way, contesting every ball and were rewarded when a lovely break by outside-half Rhodri Thomas put Amer Hussein clear with fifteen metres to the line for a try which Rhodri duly converted. At this point the ‘Banos faithful could be forgiven for thinking that if the team could carry on in this vein then another victory was going to be ours. Rhodri then put his side in the lead with a well struck penalty. Just before half-time Rhodri (again in the opinion of the writer) was harshly shown a yellow card after being tackled well after the referee had blown his whistle and letting the offender know that he was not best pleased.
Trebanos survived almost ten minutes of intense pressure at the start of the second half, thanks to an organised and disciplined defence and following a great chase of a kick ahead were awarded a penalty on the visitor’s 10metre line. Rhodri Thomas was called back on by the referee at the end of his ten minutes, coolly stepped up, and slotted over the kick to increase the lead to six points. The mistakes and poor decision making started to creep into the home game. Despite lock Gareth Jones winning clean ball at the front of the lineout, the ball was being thrown to the back where it was invariably lost, and it was from such an occurrence that Pontardawe scored their second try. Their impressive No8 picked up the overthrow to make the hard yards, the ball was moved right then left where Chris Davies went round the overstretched defence to score in the corner.
Trebanos then started to control the ball more, but unfortunately not consistently enough and instead of releasing the ball at a controlled scrum for the ball to be put into the corners it was picked up and lost, giving control back to the visitors who after another period of pressure put Matthew Thomas in for his second try, again converted by N Jones. The final scoreline being 13 points to 19 as it was last month to our other neighbours Glais.
Trebanos Team:
L Pickman; A Penhale, S Williams, A Hussein (Capt), C Edwards (B Howells 65); R Thomas; O George (J Bailey 59); N Bartlett, J Harding, S Knight; L Jones, G Jones; D Davies (C Harries 60), M Evans, J Erasmus.