Pre-Match Information

Llandaff North RFC - Location:-
42 Radyr Road
Cardiff,
South Glamorgan
CF14 2FU
T: 029 2056 1803

Website: http://llandaffnorth.com/

Match Report

The Sports Club travelled to Llandaff North hoping to continue their in-form, post Christmas playing style. And hoping to improve on the hard fought 25-25 result when they played Llandaff North in October.

They took the field with a side quite capable of doing that, but could not have had a worse start when returning centre Michael ‘The Mountie’ John had his clearance kick charged down by the home side’s center, Chris Gordon, who easily touched down but outside half Chris Burke failed with the conversion attempt. Normally this sort of poor start would galvanise a side and give them a ‘wake-up’ call, but it was not the case and the Sports conceded another easy try taking the lead to 10-0 after just 15 minutes.

As the Sports began to exert some pressure on the home defence a high tackle by Llandaff’s center Tuinasakea earned him the first yellow card of the match. The penalty awarded was
converted by Josh Davies to reduce the lead. Just before half time it was another yellow card, this time for number 8 player/coach Gavin Lucas. He was a key player in the Llandaff pack as he had been when at the Bandstand field and this was an opportunity for the visitors to get back into the game.

With the start of the second half came a replacement for the Sports when Jay Dent had to leave the field to be replaced by player/coach Rhys Dowling. No sooner had he taken the field and he was judged to have been over robust in rucking at the loose and he saw ‘yellow’ as well.
The penalty through Chris Burke took the lead to 13-3. It was a scrappy, untidy game and when prop Mike Fussey fouled Nathan Townley off the ball his yellow card reduced Llandaff to 12 men for a few moments. Although the Sports made good effort to pressurise the Llandaff line their defence was good and overall had 70% of the territory and 50% of possession, which was enough to give them greater opportunities to capitalise on.
Llandaff then produced a strong driving maul and ruck it was their scrum half John Osborne who was at hand to finish the move off with a well taken try that Burke converted. Although the disruption of not playing for a few weeks is obvious, the Sports will be disappointed at this performance and look to improve before they travel away to Abecwmboi on March 3rd.
The Sports host a re-union Club Dinner at 7pm on March 16th at the Heronston Hotel with Graham Price as guest speaker and invite past payers to contact any of the committee if they want to join them.