WEST CENTRAL C
ALLTWEN .................... 16 CEFN CRIBWR ............ 11
THIS titanic battle of the two leading teams in the league certainly lived up to its billing, with the powerful home pack proving massive resistance in defence and turning on the power play in attack.
One such early foray yielded an early penalty for not releasing, duly converted by full back Andrew Roberts, for Alltwen to go into an early threepoint lead.
As is the norm with Cefn, it takes a score like that to sting them into action, and they responded quite brilliantly with a super attack that saw fly half Gareth Lewis make a telling half break. Skipper and centre Owen Davies then floated a lovely long pass a la a certain Englishman named Farrell; lively winger Ian Williams was just thwarted in the corner, getting stopped a foot short by the cover defence.
Cefn fly half Gareth Lewis followed up the attack with two penalties, one magnificently struck from the touchline to give Cefn a marginally deserved 6-3 lead. Alltwen, playing with the considerable slope rounded off the first half with an excellent try of their own; with the ball moving through several sets of hands for classy fly half Kyle Roberts to scoot over in the very last play of the first half, putting Alltwen 8-6 ahead at the interval.
Cefn had an early lapse in the second half that saw them retreat into their own 22. Owen Davies’ quick thinking drop out saw another Cefn length of the field movement that resulted in a disallowed try for scrum half Owen Attwood; but seconds later Atwood went over for a fine solo effort to put Cefn 11-8 ahead.
Alltwen full back An- drew Roberts put over a clean penalty, and in the dying minutes the home side scored a try following some excellent build up work to go 16-11 ahead. Cefn did not give up in this titanic battle with Lewis again putting his side into the corner with another superb kick out of hand, only for the ball to be ruled out of play. Cefn could not capitalise in the nail-biting dying seconds. A fine break by winger Dale Woods was called back for a forward pass right at the final whistle.
This was still a good showing of commitment and effort form Cefn with the front row of Robbie Thorne, Richard Hicks and Steve Potts working tremendously hard. Laney Brockwell stood put in the powerhouse whilst Steve Gillard, Luke Donne and Richie Cowans grafted throughout.
Cefn still lead Alltwen by seven clear points in the league, so it is still all to play for.