Crynant 11 Sports 16
The Sports looked a side from the outset that they were wanting to 'get on with the season', having been 'rained off' last week , they were desperate to show the skills and tactics employed by all the squad so well in friendly games against Porthcawl and Cowbridge.
Having lost players to Tondu this was a refreshingly different Sports side, and from the outset you could feel the influence of the expansive platform promoted by new coach Steve Rees.
With Roddy Boobyer making his debut in the centre along side speed merchant Scott Narbeth. The back three of 18 year old Jayce Evans at full back and flyers Peter Roberts and Ryan Morgan on the wings promised the open rugby that the supporters were hoping for.
The Sports put on a lot of early pressure through a dynamic back row and Gary Punter came within inches of a try before the Cynant defence showed their mettle.
When blind side wing forward Jamie Lorrimer charged down the scrum half's attempted clearance , it was Jo Bryant who was on hand to set up a driving maul, new scrum half,Chris Morgan spun the ball wide and for another new recruit, Justin Jones to make his debut try. Nathan Townley made it 0-7 after 10 minutes.
The Sports were asking all the questions in the centre and the experience of Boobyer showed with every move, his distribution and vision causing panic in the home defence.
If it were not for opposing centre Paul Taylor, Crynant's best player, the hard yards that Boobyer was making would have been a lot more. The Sports forced errors from the home defence and Nathan Townley made no mistakes with two well struck penalties taking the Sports to a comfortable 0-13 lead. Crynant missed two 'kickable' penalties before changing their kicker to scrum half Simon Moses who on the stroke of half time made the score 3-13.
This stage became Crynant's best phase of play and the Sports were caught again offside in front of the posts and Moses reduced the lead to 6-16. From the kick off Crynant handled in the loose and again Townley stepped up to continue his 100% record and took the visitors ahead to 6-16.
Crynant fought back and produced the best move and try of the match when centre Paul Taylor, wrong footed the Sports defence and was well tackled by full back Evans only for the Crynant back row to dive on and quickly spin the ball wide with all the threes handling before wing Leighton Daniels scored in the corner.
The kick failed and Crynant were back in the game at 11-16 with 10 minutes remaining.
At this stage, it was the Sports who showed their mettle, with new skipper, hooker Chris Norris leading from the front and showing good liaison skills with coach Rees as the Sports ran the clock down by gaining total territory advantage in the closing minutes. It was a hard fought, important win with the only disapointment being the lack of quality ball to the Sports flyers.
Final Score line Crynant 11 Bridgend Sports 16.