CARDIGAN DOWNED BY WASPS

Division 3 west

Llangwm 10 Cardigan 7

Llangwm produced the shock result of the day when they defeated Cardigan at Pill Parks following a tight match that could have gone either way, this a first victory over their Ceredigion rivals for a very long time.

The Wasps, who have spent much of the last few decades in the league basement and who average less than a handful of wins per season deserved to edge out a very youthful Cardigan team to start their campaign off with a bang and a first opening day win since the nineties.

There would have been less shock in the Teifi valley area as many followers will have seen this result coming for some time as playing numbers have dwindled sharply. This was brought much clearer into focus the weekend before when the Cardi’s were handed out a 68-0 caning by local rivals Aberaeron.

Coach Tudor Harries has a very young squad with just a small sprinkling of elder statesmen in his team in the form of veteran Andrew Fletcher at prop, flanker Dyfed Simmonds, second row Rob Connolly and skipper and number eight Tom Taylor, the rest though are largely made up of players not long out of youth.

There is no denying their commitment and passion but Harries will need time to get the best out of this young team and the former Crymych youth team coach will be hoping to bounce back with a win this weekend against St Davids.

Llangwm were first out of the blocks and started positively playing down the slope and went close on a number of occasions through scrum half Ollie Davies and winger Dan Morgan but they were thwarted by some excellent defending from the likes of Tom Taylor, Sion Phillips, Gruff Lewis, Ben Hughes, Osian Rees and Will Brice.

The deadlock was eventually broken in the opening quarter when number eight Josh Hicks powered his way over for a try and this was to be the only score of the first half.

Cardigan hit back after the interval with a well executed try following a break from full back Iwan John which was rounded off by powerful runner Geraint Williams and converted by outside half Llyr Jones.

Hosts centre Lewis Murphy regained the lead for the Wasps with a smart try that was not converted and place kicker Luke Hayman had a chance to redeem himself with a penalty but he was off target.

The Cardi’s pushed hard late on for any sort of score but Llangwm managed to see the game out and enjoy a first win over the Ceredigion men for over thirty years.