Pontyclun 16 Llanharan 19
Here's the match report from John Grisham. sorry i mean Gareth Nicholas.
Pontyclun V Llanharan
A significant day for Llanharan RFC, where a depleted side, ground out a win to do the double over their nearest rivals, and secure top place in the group of death, in the newly formatted cup competition. The Dairymen have now strung together a seven match, winning streak. All of this achieved by local boys and old fashioned rugby values, which include no payment whatsoever to any player.
Llanharan started like a steam train. Their scrum and lineout, took control of the game, with Gethin Cashmore, looking like the ugly brother in “right said Fred” having a superb day in all aspects of 1st phase.
However it was not just at set piece where the Llanharan forwards dominated. In ball carrying and defence, the away side was sharper and more physical. The physical dominance showed when after about 10 minutes Gethin “butterball” Cashmore smashed his way over from a full 3 inches to open the scoring. The 2 extra points were added by the virgin converter himself, Scott Jones.
Llanharan then, instead of pressing home the physical advantage, decided to move away from the game plan, where individual sloppiness and poor discipline led to Pontyclun controlling the game for a large period of the first half and kicking 3 penalties to take the lead. However the lead was short lived, and after a patient build up, the ball found it’s way to the left hand touchline where a lurking Rhys Dauncey received the on the 10m line with still lots of work to be done in order to get to the try line. He set off leaving one defender in his slipstream, handing off another before crashing over to score. The score at half time was
Pontyclun 9 – 12 Llanharan
The game became a scrappy affair with the referee’s whistle dominating the second half, until some quality basic rugby which included sound ball security and a patient build up gave wanna be gangster, Ross Pritchard, the opportunity to smash through would be tacklers to touchdown and provide the cushion that would allow the Llanharan supporter to breath easily. Again the 2 points were added by Fabio
The last 15 minutes were exceptionally scrappy, with penalty after penalty being awarded. Pontyclun never gave up and were rewarded with a try and conversion to close the gap to 16 – 19, but it was too little, too late with the final whistle coming very soon after that, pleasing the Llanharan contingent and especially Jack Dauncey who capped a fine game at tight head, with the honour of being the first rugby player from Llanharan to be shocked back to life, using a defibrillator and to play on after it
FT
Pontyclun 16 – 19 Llanharan
When interviewed after the game, Llanharan legend and perfume model, Kevin Jones mentioned “It would be mendacious of me not to mention the enormous impact, that the forwards and Gareth Nicholas had on that game.”
Andy Price, celebrating the 15th anniversary of his split from Frankie Goes to Hollywood stated “what does mendacious mean?”
