Llanelli Wanderers Rugby Football Club

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

MATCH REPORT

NEYLAND v LLANELLI WANDERERS 13/12/03

Don’t know what it is about Pembrokeshire teams but last week they wouldn’t admit to us winning and this week, wouldn’t even admit that we played!!!! But yes, the game did take place and the Wanderers ran out winners by 10 points to 25.

The Wanderers elected to play up the slope in the first half with a strong breeze blowing across the pitch making kicking difficult for both teams.

The opening 10 minutes saw the Wanderers make numerous errors and therefore found it difficult to gain any territory and, following a period of pressure, Neyland opened the scoring with a penalty.

The Wanderers slowly got back into the game with a fine break by center Dylan Hughes whose chip ahead was collected by the full back and cleared when a pass inside may have paid better dividends. However, from a resulting scrum, the ball was won against the head for fellow center Stuart Prendaville to find the gap in the Neyland defense. Unfortunately, he was stopped just short of the line but had flanker Lee Cook on hand to crash over for the Wanderers first try. The evergreen Barrie Davies was successful with the conversion, and a subsequent penalty, which put the Wanderers 10 points to 3 up. The Wanderers were now attempting to up the tempo but again, handling mistakes were letting them down.

Gareth Spuffard was having a fine game in defense and set up a number of counter attacks. From one such move, the ball passed along the three quarters and when Rob Jenkins took a pass in support, he was stopped just short of the line. From the ensuing ruck, scrum half Andrew Jenkins powered over for one of his trademark tries. The conversion failed.

As the half came to a close, another fine handling move saw Karl Evans create space to power in from 20 meters to score. Barrie Davies converted.            HT  3 – 22

Neyland came out for the second half a much more determined team and put the Wanderers under the cosh for long periods, with their forwards constantly driving at the Wanderers defense. The main redeeming feature for the Wanderers was the dominance of their scrum, which constantly destroyed that of Neyland and resulted in 4 strikes against the head for the front row union, and hooker Gareth Rees in particular.

However, it was from a scrum that the Neyland number 8 broke clear and fed his flanker to cross for their opening try. The conversion was successful.

The Wanderers replied almost immediately with a penalty from Barrie Davies.

The up front tackling of the Wanderers was again the Achilles heel, with only Barrie Davies, for the second successive week, making any impact. Having said that, when the Wanderers were under sustained pressure the whole team put their bodies on the line to prevent any further Neyland scores.

The game ended with a melee and 4 players yellow carded, 2 from each side, but the Wanderers had not allowed Neyland to intimidate them, and although not playing particularly well in the second half, had come away with an excellent win

FINAL SCORE: NEYLAND   10  LLANELLI WANDERERS 25.

TRIES:  L. COOK, A. JENKINS, K. EVANS

CONVERSION:            B. DAVIES (2)

PENALTY :              B. DAVIES (2)

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