Indigo Group Premiership Cup

MERTHYR 24 EBBW VALE 26

(Saturday 18^th September 21) Indigo Group Premiership Cup East)

This was a poor performance from the Ironmen, in a game that they didn’t deserve to win but could have but were denied by a last gasp penalty deep into injury time from outside half Lewis Williams. This was an exciting encounter with the lead changing hands on several occasions and with the first 40 minutes belonging to the visitors. The opening quarter was quite even as both sides tested each other out with the visitors taking the lead after Merthyr were caught offside and outside half Lewis K Williams making no mistake with the kick to give Ebbw Vale a 0–3-point lead. However, this was short lived as from the restart Ebbw Vale gave away a silly penalty and home debutant outside half Gareth Thompson slotting over the kick to draw the sides level 3-3. Merthyr were guilty of giving away too many penalties and were soon punished by the visitors who extended the lead with two further penalties from Williams to give the Steelmen a 3-9 lead. The Ironmen seemed to be slow to the breakdown as the visitors piled pressure on and thing got worse for Merthyr when Ebbw Vale scrum half spotted a gap near the Merthyr line to dart over under the posts for the opening try, Williams converted, and Ebbw Vale went in at half time with a 3-16 lead. What ever was said at half time from the Merthyr Coaching staff seemed to work as Merthyr musted up a tremendous second half fight back with full back Ben Jones joining the three-quarter line inside the Ebb Vale 25 to race over for Merthyr’s first try, Thompson converted, and the gap was now 10-16. Merthyr then began to gain the upper hand and when a drop pass just inside the Merthyr half was scooped up by centre Alex Webber who raced up field to find outside half Thompson up in support who beat the covering defence to touch down under the post, with Thompson converting his own try the ironmen had taken the lead for the first time 17-16. With game evenly balanced Ebbw Vale put together several good drives inside the Merthyr half and when a break down the blindside by wing man Ethan Phillips whose pass to a man outside him was deliberately knocked on by home number 8 Phil Rees Referee Craig Evans awarded a penalty try and sent Rees to the sin bin for 10 minutes which gave Ebbw Vale a 17-23 lead. Back came the ironmen looking for an all-important score but several chances were wasted as Merthyr fail to win good lineout ball in good attacking positions but when they managed to win a clean lineout the home pack drove Ebbw Vale back towards their own line and Home Hooker Rhys Williams crashed over for the try, Thompson converted to push the ironmen ahead deep into injury time 24-23.  However, there was one more twist in this epic encounter when with the last move of the game Merthyr gave away a penalty 40 meters out and up stepped Williams who kept his nerve to slot over the winning penalty and give Ebbw Vale a famous victory 24-26. Although it was a great fight back from Merthyr in the second half, it was a disappointing all-round performance from the League Champions who were guilty of giving away too many penalties especially in the first half and another concern must be the lack of good clean lineout possession which no doubt the coaches will work on this week in training before the visit of  North Wales side RGC 1404.

MERTHYR :15 B Jones,14 A Hoskins,13 A Webber,12 T Pascoe,11 A Norton,10 G Thompson,9 J Soanes, 1 C Phillips,2 R Williams, 3 K Williams, 4 C Locke©, 5 C Bradbury, 6 P McBride, 7 J Perkins, 8 P Rees. 16 D Wall, 17 J Howe, 18 R Lewis, 19 T Daley, 20 S O’Rourke, 21 J Martin, 22 R Davies, 23 G Davies. Scorers, R Williams 1t, B Jones 1t, G Thompson 1t 1Pen, 2 cons.

Referee: Craig Evans (WRU).