Llanelli Wanderers Rugby Football Club

Affiliated to: The Welsh Rugby Union, West Wales Rugby Union, and the Llanelli & District Rugby Union

LLANELLI WANDERERS v ABERYSTWYTH  09/04/05 

Saturday saw the Wanderers turn the formbook upside down, when they defeated promotion-chasing Aberystwyth by 24 points to 15.

Although a shadow of the side that had comprehensively beaten the Wanderers earlier in the season, the Wanderers performance should not be under estimated as backs and forwards combined well to set up 4 tries. Perhaps the abysmal performance of the previous week and the roasting from the coaches had spurred on the side, whatever it was the Wanderers produced a performance which many knew they were well capable of.

The Wanderers had started well and were unfortunate that Aberystwyth opened the scoring with their first venture into Wanderers territory, with a snap drop goal after 15 minutes.

A lot of mistakes were being made by both sides, but when the Wanderers backs kept things simple, they looked extremely dangerous, as emphasized when a fine burst out of his own half by Karl Evans was taken on by Lee Cook and the re-cycled ball was fed out for wing Marl Cook to crash through his opposite number to score.

5 minutes later, the Wanderers stole an Aberystwyth line out, moved the ball along the three-quarters, for full back Stefan Rogers to make the extra man and feed wing Mark Cook who sprinted over unopposed from 20 meters for his second try of the match.

The half closed with the Wanderers good value for their 10 points to 3 lead.

Aber started the half well, assisted by surprisingly taking a number of scrums against the head. However, the Wanderers defence stood firm, with the back row, especially Andrew Davies covering any breaks by the visitors.

When an Aber attack broke down on half way, wing Karl Evans was on hand to pick up and sprint over under the posts to increase the Wanderers lead. Vaughan Thomas was successful with the conversion.

Lee Cook was proving a handful with his powerful runs into the Aber defence and, as he had done the week previously, burst through a maul to cross for the Wanderers 4^th try from 20 meters out. Vaughan again converted to bring the score to 24 points to 3.

With the game sliding away from them, Aber then upped their performance for the final 10 minutes and were rewarded for their pressure with 2 unconverted tries.

The highlight of this period was the character of the Wanderers defence, epitomised when Karl Evans took the ball 5 meters from his line and powered up to the 22 with half the Aber forwards on his back !!

This victory certainly helped ease relegation worries, and once again confirmed that the ability is within the team but they just have to get the mental attitude right.

FINAL SCORE:                   WANDERERS          24        ABERYSTWYTH      15

TRY:                                       M. COOK (2), L. COOK, K. EVANS

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