Saturday’s Match Report
Tonyrefail 23 - 30 Llantrisant
Llantrisant got off to a flyer with a try by fullback Marcus Webb just 3 minutes into the game, converted by Lewys Montague.
Llan were looking dangerous with ball in hand and from some good running Marcus Webb broke through to claim his 2nd try, the conversion was missed this time.
A penalty for the home side brought the score to 3-15. Five minutes later Captain Kai Davies was shown a yellow card for a tip tackle that his weight just unbalanced the Tonyrefail player.
With us down to 14-men, the home team opted for a scrum and after a couple of attempts, drove over the line to claim a try and converted it to bring the score to 10-15.
Another infringement by Ton gave Montague another 3points. Just before half time, Llan returned to 15 men and with some good phase play, eventually sent Ryan Avery under the posts for a try converted by Montague.
Half time score Tonyrefail 10 - 25 Llantrisant
The 2nd half was a tighter affair with Llan playing down the slope into the breeze Ton’s kicking was keeping us pinned back in our half.
After 20mins it was Ton who got the first points of the half with a well slotted penalty kick. Two mins later Montague missed a penalty that would have eased some nerves but thankfully from a scrum on the 22m, we broke down the short side and fed wing Stu Griffiths who did excellently and fed back inside to Holloway to dive over for our 4th try of the game, Montague couldn’t add the extra’s with the breeze pushing it just wide.
13-30 to Llan and Ton were throwing everything at us and again using the breeze to help with territory and kept kicking us back into our own 22.
From one such kick, the ball rolled dead and Holloway picked it up thinking we would have a scrum back on their 10m line but to the disbelief of the crowd, the referee deemed that Holloway had carried the ball over the dead ball line and awarded the home team a scrum 5 which they worked a couple of phases to sent their centre over for a try that their goal kicker who’d been excellent from the tee all day, slotted the conversion.
Score was 20-30 and it was 3:55pm. With Everyone thinking that Llan just had to close the game out it was 4:10pm when Llan were awarded a penalty that Montague missed and everyone thought it was full time but play continued and at nearly 4:20pm Ton were awarded a penalty which was superbly slotted to give them a losing bonus point.
Ton won the second half points 13-5 but the damage had been done to make for a full time score Tonyrefail 23, Llantrisant 30.
Llan left 10 points out there from missed kick attempts but a bonus point win on the road having not won a league game for nearly 18months was a superb result.
Man of the match for Llantrisant could’ve gone to a few players but it was Marcus Webb who receives his voucher for the Vale resort health & racquets club!