Students go top as Pooler’s match is rained off

Welsh Championship round-up

CARDIFF Met are the new Championship leaders after a 17-7 victory at Newbridge.

Met finally made the breakthrough with a Harry Johnston penalty after a tight opening 20 minutes. Luke Northmore added the first try to strengthen the lead with Johnston adding the extras.

It took another 20 minutes for Newbridge to get points on the board with Eamonn Rees converting a Matthew Davies try.

The Archers responded with a try through Eduardo Balocco with Johnston re-establishing the 10-point lead with the conversion.

The remaining five minutes saw the game turn into a scrappy encounter with both teams kicking from deep but that was enough for Met to see out the win.

The victory lifted the students to the summit as

Pontypool’s trip to Bedlinog was postponed due to bad weather, while Newbridge remain at the bottom. Narberth’s game with Maesteg Quins also failed to beat the weather with Trebanos’ trip to

Rhydyfelin and Tata Steel’s against Newcastle Emlyn going the same way.

Beddau managed to get their game going but they may have wished they hadn’t after they fell to a 2017 home defeat to promoted Ystrad Rhondda.

They made a positive start with a James Grainger penalty and a penalty try giving them a 10-0 lead while a yellow card to Harvey Connolly gave Ystrad a mountain to climb. But Jarrad Llewellyn crashed over to haul Ystrad back into it.

A Truelove penalty levelled the score after the break before another penalty try saw Beddau take the lead again with David Webb sent to the sin-bin for the visitors.

Ystrad refused to give in and another penalty from Truelove reduced the gap to four points before Ryan Howells made himself the hero as he touched down in the final minutes to snatch the victory for Ystrad.