WRU Championship
NEWCASTLE EMLYN 24 TATA STEEL 19
One of the best defensive displays seen for many a year earned Newcastle Emlyn a hard fought victory over Tata Steel.
The reds who looked as if they were coasting to victory with just fifteen minutes of play remaining were forced to fend off a late surge by the visitors who finished strongly and it was backs to the wall stuff in the dying minutes with the hosts a man down.
Newcastle Emlyn side started positively, exerting a great deal of pressure on the visitors through a series of rucks, interspersed with some excellent passing between forwards and backs. Tight head prop Gethin Davies looked to have opened the home account when he crashed over the Tata line with three players on his back, but they somehow managed to keep the ball off the ground and they struggled to get out of their twenty two for long periods.
Eventually Emlyn opened their account when from a defensive scrum five an attempted clearance kick was charged down by inside half Mike Jones and he managed to get downward pressure on the ball just short of the dead ball line and full back Dan Davies converted.
Another try followed soon after when winger Llyr Davies ran a superb line to beat his opposite number and he cleverly passed inside to Llyr Jones who sprinted away to cross by the posts for Davies to add the extra points.
Tata rallied and began to come more into the game with some excellent inter passing between forwards and backs and they used powerful inside centre Jenkins to good effect as he took Emlyn defenders on and a try eventually arrived when second row Lloyd Griffiths crashed over.
The Emlyn restart saw the ball kicked out on the full conceding a scrum on the half way line and Tata number eight Ryan Hall picked up from the base of the scrum, linked with scrum half Williams and two passes later open side David Griggs sprinted some twenty metres to score a try which outside half Geraint Llewelyn converted.
The second half followed a similar pattern with the home side dominating the early part of the game and Dan Davies extended Emlyn’s lead with a well struck penalty from the ten metre line. Some excellent kicking from the base of rucks by scrum half Mike Jones kept the pressure on Tata as the heavens opened. A fine kick chase saw Tata forced to concede a five metre scrum and number eight Brynmor Jones, who had an excellent match, picked up from the base of the scrum, fed inside half Jones who used his strength to force his way over for his second try of the match converted by Davies.
Any thoughts Emlyn might have had of a comfortable victory with the bonus point try being only a matter of time in coming were quickly dispelled by the Tata forwards. Under a great deal of pressure, the home side began to panic whenever they looked to have cleared their line, they then conceded needless penalties which put the pressure back on their line.
Desperate defending led to penalties close to the line and prop Gethin Davies was yellow carded for playing the ball in a ruck, quickly followed by second row Dan Havard for a scrum offence. Tata kept attacking Emlyn with their big forwards but fine defensive work, especially by the back row of flankers Gareth Thomson, Owain Powell and Brynmor Jones aided by the rest of the forwards, managed to keep them out.
Eventually with Emlyn back up to fifteen players Tata finally used their backs and it took an excellent tackle by Emlyn’s new signing Kami Nakove to halt a certain score.Nakove was then yellow carded for not moving out of the way quickly enough after the tackle, and the red and whites had to play the last five minutes with only fourteen players.
Centre Bleddyn Davies eventually forced his way over for Tata and with Llewelyn converting with only a couple of minutes to go there was only five points in the game. Scenting a possibly unexpected victory, Tata attacked again from the restart but the Emlyn players were not to be denied a fully deserved victory.
Photos kindly supplied by Gethin Vobe
