Dowlais 13 Sports 25
The early pressure in this Swalec Cup game came from a strong looking Dowlais side who had the larger pack and a very lively threequarter line. Ryan Morgan was looking dangerous on the left wing and one of his runs forced his opposite number to handle in the ruck and was promptly ‘yellow carded’ for the offence.
More Dowlais pressure followed and their outside half David Bow missed an easy penalty which allowed the Sports to relieve their line with a clearance kick by Boobyer.
The ball went deep into the home defence and Richard Byrne followed up with nothing really ‘on’ and surprised the home supporters when the ball popped up into his hands and he took a lucky try rounding the defence and scoring under the posts, somewhat against the run of play. Jayce Evans converting.
From the kick off the Sports went off side in front of their posts and Bow made no mistake in quickly reducing the deficit to 3-7. Dowlais continued the attacking game and some poor tackling from the Sports allowed the home winger Richard Phillips to cut through from the blind side and find number 8, Lewis Ayling in good support to score half way out.
The kick failed but the home team took the lead 8-7. Roddy Boobyer again was making good yards from the outside half position and when he was high tackled, Jayce Evans restored the Sports lead to 8-10. At this stage the Sports scrum was giving their larger opposition a torrid time. Props Rhys Brewer and Dean Griffiths out-scrumaging them with ease, with skipper Chris Norris again leading by example.
However, Dowlais continued to widen the ball and it took a fine tackle from covering second row Phil John on the wing to avoid a home try. The Sports were further off the hook when full back Brennan missed another penalty chance.
This seemed to take the wind out of the home side and for the remaining 20 minutes of the game the pressure came from a fitter Sports side. Gary Punter picked up the ball from the base of a wheeling scrum, made 30 yards and found Ryan Morgan in support, who switched the ball to Jayce Evans to overlap the home defence.
Evans kicked his own try to push the lead to 8-17. With Dowlais reduced to 14 men following another yellow card and one man short in the back row, it was scrum half Chris Morgan who was next to exploit this with a fine break from the base, he was tackled 10 meters short but with quick feed of the ball Matthew Channel had a two man overlap for an easy try. Jayce Evans just missing.
At 8-22, Dowlais now needed two scores to level and when the experienced Boobyer was handed the ball just 5 metres from the line and under the posts, he just popped over a drop goal to put the Sports out of reach with 5 minutes remaining.
Dowlais gained late territory advantage and were rewarded with a good try when scrum half Ceri Morgan took a quick penalty and Phil Rees drove over for deserved try. Final score 13-25.