Fixture

ABERYSTWYTH 8 – LLANGENNECH 11

The game and the performance by Aber mirrored the conditions – dank, dismal and colourless. There were very few highlights from either side to talk about in what was a very hard fought physical encounter. A major plus point for Aber were the number of turn-overs they won but this only served to highlight their inability to use the ball effectively in attack with their almost total reliance on first up runners trying to bash their way through a very efficient Llangennech defence. Where have we heared that before? There was certainly no lack of effort but an almost total lack of imagination or guile or attempt to change the point of attack or either to try and move a heavy Llangennech pack around the field on a heavy pitch. Llangennech kicked off and exerted early pressure within the Aber 22 which Aber defended manfully until harshly conceding a penalty at a scrum. Full back Tom Neale kicked the penalty to take the lead. After a period of stalemate Aber scored a lovely try when Rhodri Richards running hard from deep took a delightful short pass and burst through the centres and ran up to the 22 where he managed to off-load the ball as he was tackled. Gruff Jones kicked the ball through and won the race for the touch-down to take the lead at 5 – 3. There followed a slight delay to treat an injury to loose-head Kevin Jones which hopefully will not be as serious as initially thought. Despite this set-back Aber controlled the game for the next 10 minute without really  threatening to score a try but Llangennech had to concede a number of penalties and full-back Steff Rees converted one to extend the lead to 8 – 3. Again Aber dominated play but Llangennech struck back when they scored a lovely try wide out on the left wing to equalize.  They fielded a speculative Aber kick on their own 10m line and with some lovely clinical passing put left winger Tom Barnes in to score. Aber again went on the attack and made some promising half-breaks but a frustrating inability to look after the ball or attempts at ambitious off-loads given the conditions led to the attacks being nullified and the score remained at 8-8 at half-time. That basically was as good as it got for Aber who mainly dominated proceedings in the second half but a failure to generate any quick ball from rucks failed to add to the score. Llangennech full-back Tom Neale kicked a penalty after 60 mis to take the lead 8 – 11. Aber showed terrific grit and endeavour to dominate the remainder of the game and spurned a couple of penalty opportunities to try and win the game. Unfortunately for reasons previously mentioned they failed much to the frustration of the home supporters and relief of the Llangennech players and supporters.