Trebanos Youth 29 Abercwmboi Youth 3
Saturday 10th November 2007
Trebanos Youth are in the middle of a fine run of form at the moment having only lost one game so far this season and today’s game was another example of the way in which the squad is developing, both as an unit and individually. There were a few absentees owing to injury and unavailability, but the players drafted in were determined to take their chances.
The pack again laid the foundation with another solid all round performance. The first scoring chance came from a penalty as a result of the forward pressure exerted by the home pack, which was kicked by Nic Damjanovic. The visitors soon replied, kicking a penalty when Trebanos were judged to have killed the ball at a ruck. The irrepressible Nathan Jones with a fine side-stepping run, scored the first home try, converted by Nic Damjanovic. There followed some good rugby with the home team having the better of the exchanges. When centre Nic Damjonvic chose to ignore a certain overlap and put in a long diagonal kick, a great opportunity seemed to have been missed; but great work by the speedy Jordan Hopkins and the ever present Rhodri Williams, forced the Abercwmboi defence to knock the ball on. From the scrum, Lee Sinclair picked up and ran straight, flankers Williams and Carney providing the decoy and Nathan Jones profiting from a lovely pass out of the tackle by Lee Sinclair to force his way over from short range.
The next score was one for the threequarters, with centre Damjanovic looping his wing to score in the corner after side-stepping the cover and converted his own try with the most difficult attempt of the afternoon.
Whatever the Abercwmboi coach said at half time certainly worked because the first twenty minutes turned into a real slog with the home eight having to pull out all the stops to eventually control matters with a try coming for the hard working second row, Chris Balffe.
Whilst the second half didn’t live up to the expectation created by the feast of controlled and organised rugby displayed during the first half, there were still a lot of positives that the players and coaches can take from the game with flanker Rhodri Williams demonstrating that the art of the “openside flanker” is alive and kicking down at the park, with some tremendous lines of running and anticipation so that he was never far from the ball. Lee Sinclair again showed why he is such an asset at No 8, with strong bursts from line and scrum. Whilst behind Nathan Jones has tremendous acceleration coupled with an eye for a gap and is always going to cause opposing sides problems.
Team: K Jones; C Davies, N Damjanovic, R Jones, N Jones (Capt); R Jones, R Thomas; D Blake, D Bale, C Balffe; R Carney, L Sinclair; R Williams, R Davies, S Bartlett