News

With hundreds of spectators in Carnival mood and Porthcawl’s 1^ST XV game off Porthcawl & Bridgend Athletic 2^nd XV’s held centre stage on a hot sunny Easter Saturday at South Road, Porthcawl. Both sides tried to entertain the crowd by playing 15-man rugby. The Athletic with more experience with youngsters Tom Davies, Ben Cording, Sam Richards and Luke Bevan having recent 1^stXV experience and older heads Andrew Brown, Lloyd Pemberton and Rhys Jones making his 100^th senior appearance prevailed on the day with 4 converted tries in a 28-0 victory.

The Athletic got off to a very quick start with speedy flanker Tom Davies finishing off a move involving Nick “the Greek” Jones and Ellis James. Scott “Cyprus” Jones converted. Jones then showed his outside half skills after good work by lock Lloyd Pemberton set up field position and lively scrum half Joe Symons gave him quick ball. A show of the ball and shimmy saw him clean through the home defence to cross under the posts for a try which he also converted. With passive scrums the Athletic front row of Lewis Dando, Josh Evans and Callum Swinford were released to show their ball carrying skills and made inroads into the Porthcawl defence allowing half backs Symons and Jones to release centres Luke Bevan and Luke Hollyman. Alert flanker Ben Cording popped up outside Hollyman to dive over in the corner. Jones added an excellent touchline conversion to give the Athletic a 21-0 half time lead.

Playing down the slope Porthcawl came into the game and for the first quarter of the second half kept the Athletic pinned inside their own half. Their No 8 was proving a handful for the Athletic defence and moving the ball wide Porthcawl created several scoring opportunities. A combination of good defending by wings Ryan Pickford and Stuart Robson and poor execution of the final scoring pass kept the Athletic try line intact. On the hour mark the Athletic broke the stranglehold and speedy full back Sam Richards showed the home side how to finish Luke Bevan added the conversion.

With rotating subs all the 20 Athletic players including Luke Yardley, Alex Borley and player team manager Liam Griffiths enjoyed game time. The final 15 minutes played in 23C heat increasingly saw the physios on the field and both sides were glad to hear the final whistle to adjourn to the bar and enjoy the post-match revelry.