DIVISION 2 EAST CENTRAL

PONTYCLUN ............... 10 ABERDARE .................. 29

FOR the first 20 minutes of this game it was all pretty even with attacks and counter-attacks being snuffed out by good defence on both sides.

Then Aberdare simply went up a gear and scored two excellent tries within five minutes. The first came after impressive inside centre Craig Smith split the Clun back line with ease and darted for the line. He slipped a pass inside to supporting full back Mathew Rafferty who scored under the posts. Hooker Jamie Price added the conversion.

Then from a Clun move towards the visitors’ line the ball was spilled to Smith and with fellow centre Jarrad Rees they broke desperate defence to get the ball out to right wing Ceirion Griffiths who ran some 40m to score. Price again added the extra two points.

Aberdare had clearly come to play open rugby but the next try came from a rare three-quarter mistake when Clun outside half Joe Williams collected a missed pass and slipped pass his opposite number. His pass inside to the supporting Clun scrum half Nicky Theaker, easily Clun’s most influential player, was well timed and he ran from his own 22m line through some desperate tacklers to score near the posts. The conversion by Russ Gwyther took the score to 7-14 at the halftime mark.

From the restart Pontyclun were under pressure and the ball was eventually cycled out to centre Rees who blasted across the field to score near the touchline. This time the conversion failed.

Whilst Pontyclun were, by now, under increasing pressure from a confident Aberdare XV, to their credit they never succumbed and took play back into the Aberdare 22m area. Aggressive tackling by the Aberdare defenders prevented a try but after a technical offence referee Ryan Lewis gave the home side a meagre reward with a penalty under the posts taken by Gwyther.

In the last 20 minutes both sides made substitutions but by now the Aberdare team seemed to grow in confidence and battered the Clun line both right and left but declining a number of penalty options offered by Referee Lewis in order to go for a bonus try. That reward eventually came when replacement centre Ben Bowen crashed over near the right touchline. The conversion failed but Aberdare had a little more in their locker and in the dying moments left wing Callum Morris crossed, once again, near the touchline for another unconverted try to take the final score to Pontyclun 10 Aberdare 29.