This Newspaper cutting was given to me by Derrick Preece at the Resolven game, his father had kept it for a long time unknown to Derrick. Every player in this Team had come through the Club's Youth system. Derrick Preece, Trevor Worgan and Rhys Williams had all played for Cardiff RFC, while Denver Thomson would go on to play for Cardiff as well. Gareth Llewellyn would go on to play 95 games for Wales and the rest of the team would go on to play over 400 games each for the Club. Can anyone tell us what year this was and who was coaching the Team at the time?
The cutting is a bit old but i have done my best to photograph it. (Decided to type it out in the end)
Tredegar RFC 7 Llanharan RFC 10
Possession,position, pace. That was the formula which sent little Llanharan joyfully in to the Schweppes Cup Quarter Finals.
They foiled and frustrated Tredegar in a wind faced first half and confused and confounded them in the second-- a throughly professional performance from a Team that was a credit to rugby throughout the day.
Getting in strength to the loose ball -- and there was plenty of that, courtesy of the icy wind and the soggy pitch-- and always rucking beautifully, Llanharan restricted their hosts to a Nick Hunt dropped goal and a try by prop Ryan Buckley.
Llanharan had set a 6 point half time deficit target and now they put part 2 of their plan in to operation.
Whereas earlier they had launched big centre Steve Butler to create the rucks, 20 year old outside half Kevin Jones and his partner Mike Jones began to hoist high balls on the wind and the pressure began to build.
After several narrow escapes Tredegar cracked, trying to move away an up and under as Meirion Reynolds and the other Llanharan preditors closed in. Unfortunately centre Derrick Preece was waiting for them.
"I just held on to the interception and then i found i couldn't get any acceleration off the muddy surface" said the former Cardiff flyer.
"I could sense the defence closing in but eventually i managed to get up to full pace. It was our game after that"
For a while it didn't look that way. Tredegar's back row of Ian Davies, Chris Evans and David Moore increasingly made life difficult for the Llanharan backs, whose kicking even that of the reliable Rhys Williams at full back began to go amiss.
Play stagnated around Llanharan's 10 metre line for around 20 minutes before skiper Trevor Worgan's exaltations and example got his Team back on line.
Five minutes from the end they clinched it---thanks to a move that went wrong and the New Zealand style strength of a sheep farmer, who until a few months ago had forsaken rugby for biking.
From a scrum 25 metres out , Worgan was supposed to break blind but the ball shot out and scrum half Jones set off himself to to link with wing Alan Hughes, who worked marvels to flip the ball inside as he was crashed in to touch.
Coming up on the inside at full pelt was 26 year old flanker Denver Thomson, who drove through a clutch of tacklers to just make the line.
The population of Llanharan, having taken possession of Tredegar's stand, erupted. Tredegar had to score a try to win and Llanharan were going to die rather than let that happen.
So the party started and there was even joy for Anthony Lee, who was originally named for the tie but made way for star wing Mel Pring for the re-arranged game.
He came on as substitute , as coincidentally , did Neil Quirk, who had suffered a similar fate for Tredegar.
Llanharan Team:
Rhys Williams
Alan Hughes
Derrick Preece
Steve Butler
Mel Pring
Kevin Jones
Mike Jones
Wayne Merry
Chris Langdon
Jeff Pick
Gareth Llewellyn
Alan Evans
Meirion Reynolds
Trevor Worgan(Capt.)
Denver Thomson
Report by John Scantlebury.