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17 April 2018 / Club News

Bridgend Athletic RFC Mini & Junior Round Up – Sunday 15th April 2018

Nigel Owens was very complimentary of the previous week’s Athletic Mini Festival at Bryntirion School where he refereed several games in age groups 7-11. He praised the organisation and sportsmanship of the teams taking part with supporters applauding good moves and tries whether from their own team or the opposition. He bantered with Rhys Webb who also refereed some games and asked for some tips, telling him he apparently knew all the rules when Nigel was refereeing him.

 

This weekend was another good one for the Athletic M&J sections with all age groups from U7-U16 in action. 5 of the Under 16 team represented the Boys Club of Wales U16 against the Netherlands Under 17’S in Amsterdam.

 

On Sunday 15th April, Bridgend Athletic U7’s entered two teams into the Beddau RFC annual tag rugby festival. This was a good opportunity for our boys to show their skills against opposition from other district teams who they don’t usually have the chance to play. The other teams in our pool were Beddau, Bedwas, Llantwit Fardre, Pontypridd and Ystrad.

Despite poor weather conditions on the day our boys performed exceptionally well, putting in strong performances against stiff competition. They showed a lot of flair in attack and great determination with their tagging. Yet again our boys did fantastically well, making both the parents and coaches very proud. In total, 10 matches were played with 6 wins, 3 draws and only the 1 loss.

“They may not tackle, they may not fight but they certainly are made of Dynamite”!

 

Bridgend Athletic RFC Under 8s entered two teams into the Beddau RFC Annual Festival playing a total of 12 games. The Ath Golds winning all 6 of their games scoring 33 tries & conceding 18 & the Ath Greens winning 5, losing 1, scoring 31 tries conceding only 11. A great squad effort produced, stand out try scoring performances from Ethan Davies with 14, Mason Brown 10, Ashton Davies 10, Dylan Jones 5, Dylan Gardiner 5, Iestyn Bissmire 5 & Reuben O’ Brien 4. Next week the Under 8s venture to Bonymaen for their Annual Festival.

 

Bridgend Athletic U9s travelled to Whitehall in Bristol on Sunday to play in their annual rugby festival, entering 2 sides Green & Yellow in a 7 a side tournament, and having to quickly adapt to English rules differing from their normal WRU format.

In total, they played 10 games between them, winning 9 and only loosing 1. Playing with smiles on their faces, the rugby was a joy to watch with excellent skills on display in defence and in offence.

 

It was a fantastic team effort with everyone playing their part, scoring a total of 58 tries throughout the festival.

Bridgend Ath U10s attended the Ospreys festival at Pencoed over the weekend, playing a total of seven games over the two days, and only suffering 1 defeat. They played outstandingly winning a number games without conceding any tries - some10-0, 8-0 and 6-0. It was a pleasure to watch them play, as a team, great individual rugby players coming together to form an unstoppable side.

 Day two of the festival and the weather was causing poor pitch conditions, but this didn't faze the U10s who finished the day without a loss. Thank you to Pencoed for hosting the festival and for the Ospreys for the great organisation. On to the next one!


The Ath under 11s concluded their season with a visit to Old Penarthians. They saved their best performance for this last match running out 5-3 victors.
First half tries from Lucas Kenny and Ioan Hammond saw the Ath take the initiative. Penarthians pulled a try back early in the second half, but the team dug deep to launch wave after wave of attacks. Some strong running from James Waite was rewarded with a try to put the Ath 3-1 up, before Ioan Hammond added his second minutes later. Kian Tolentino rounded off a fine display with the Ath's fifth try of the day.
Penarthians showed true grit to fight back with two late tries, but the result was never in doubt, as all fourteen squad members put in a huge shift to close the game out. Mention must be made of Thomas Drysdale's ferocious tackling.

The Ath Under 12s followed up sharing the Old Luctonians Festival trophy in Hereford the previous Sunday with a drawn final against Stourbridge, by crossing the Severn Bridge to take part in the Whitehall of Bristol Festival.

With 70-0 victories over both Whitehall RFC and Dings RFC and a 25-0 win over Wootton Bassett the Ath scored 33 tries (165 points) without conceding a single point. Try Scorers were Rhys Hockings & Dan Stoodley 5, Leo Quinn 4, Dan Clarke, Louis Philemon and Charlie Rees 3 each, Rhydian Greenhall, Dan Honeyfield and Harry Griffiths 2 each, Sam Breeze, Dan Mellor, Alex Tidball and Harvey Tooze 1 apiece.

 

The Athletic Under 13s went west for their first visit to Dunvant looking to continue their good run of form and were pleased to find themselves warming up in front of the 1st XV team’s stand before playing on that pitch. They did full justice to the occasions outscoring the home side by 10 tries to 1 in a 56-7 victory.
 The Ath started strongly and following some hard running from winger Ryan Jones, Danny Wilson powered his way over for the opening try, converted by Jacob Hughes. Shea Duggan was next to cross, the centre showing his eye for the gap, again converted by Jacob. Ryan Jones who was having a fine game was next on the scoresheet followed by Luca Barclay and then Shea ran in his second. A barnstorming run by Bailey John set up the backs to move the ball wide for a good team try in the corner finished off by Sam Barraclough and converted by Jacob for a half time score of 36-0.
Shortly after the restart a bit of individual brilliance saw Toby Lewis score a lovely try which was quickly followed by Sam Barraclough racing clear from his own half for his second. Dunvant then dug in and drove the ball forward to be rewarded with a typical forward try well converted to trail 46-7. Ryan Jones then scored a second and then completed his hat trick for a 56-7 victory and an outstanding display from the winger.
Another great team performance with the front row trio Archie Brent, Matthew Pugh, Kieran Lewis and Ryan Goodfellow all standing out.


The Ath under 14's travelled across the bridge to play in the Whitehall RFC Festival Bristol. With only 18 players available and 3 physical games awaiting them the boys had to put in a big shift, which they did to good effect emerging convincing 35-12 tournament victors against Cinderford.

First up was Kingswood RFC in a game which lived up to expectation. The breakdown was a highly contested part of the game and not having contested lineouts or lifting the Ath had to adapt quickly. It wasn't long before the Ath were running in well worked tries and dominating most aspects of the game running out convincing winners.
Next up was Whitehall RFC who put in a good performance but couldn't match the physicality of the Ath pack and the pace of the backs. It was another big win and the Ath experimented playing boys in different positions. 
The final game saw us play familiar opponents Cinderford who are a very good side. It was the fixture of the day with all teams present keen on watching who would emerge the winner of the festival. The Ath players were well up for this game and put in a massive performance with every player giving 100%. The Ath were clinical in everything they did with forwards and backs combining and it wasn't long before they stamped their authority on the game to run out convincing winners with the final score Ath 35 - 12 Cinderford. There were too many great performances to name players in what was a true squad performance. The team truly deserved to win the festival with lots of great compliments coming from spectators of other teams about the standard of their rugby on show.

 

Bridgend Athletic Under 15s played in the inaugural 2-day Ospreys tournament on Saturday and Sunday and were superb throughout both days emerging with great credit losing the final to a Culleton (Devon) side undefeated in two seasons.

On a beautiful sunny day on Saturday the Ath played 3 games winning 15-0 against Rotherham Phoenix, 20-5 against Andover and 35-0 against Rhyl. Fantastic running rugby saw the Ath score 14 tries in 3 games and only concede 1 try. Scorers were Owen D’Adamo 4, Thomas Munro-Dawkins 2, Harrison Morgan, Ryan Neagle , Michael Gillette , Euan Rees, Tom Florence, John Coates & Harry Cawley 1 apiece. The most popular try of the day went to Ollie Gibbs- his first ever try for the Ath in his sixth season! His coach remarked. “I don’t think I have ever seen anybody so excited to score in any level of Rugby!!” Ollie ended up being carried from the field by his team mates at full time- Well done Gibbooooooooo!!

The Sunday brought a total contrast with the mud and rain and a totally different day to contend with. The Ath played Rotherham again in the semi-final on a pitch the approximate size of a Postage Stamp!!! The size of the pitch, the rain and mud making it very difficult for both teams. Great defence in the first half by the Ath kept Rotherham out however in the second half all the pressure was applied by the Ath. A combination of good defence and extremely tricky conditions, however, saw the game finish scoreless- the Ath getting to the final due to number of tries scored throughout the tournament.

The final was against a very good, well drilled Cullompton team (Devon). They have been unbeaten for 2 years and were a very powerful unit.After approximately 10 minutes Cullompton were awarded a try following a penalty move close to the Ath line. They scored through an old fashioned flying wedge (which was outlawed from the game years ago!!) The tough judge agreeing that it should not have been awarded and in fact, a penalty should have been given to the Ath.

The second half. saw a monumental effort from the Ath boys attempting to turn the game around. The Ath attacked at every opportunity however couldn’t manage to score, mainly due to stout defence from the opposition. By this time the conditions had become so bad with mud and rain that one side could not be identified from the other and therefore it became impossible to play any fluent rugby. Despite this, the Ath continued to try to attack at every opportunity and heaped pressure on the opposition. However, the half remained scoreless, Cullompton winning 5-0.

A fantastic effort over 2 days by all 23 players who should be extremely proud of the effort and skill that they showed throughout both days. The Cullompton coach describing our boys as the best team that they have ever faced!!!Well done Guys!!!!

 

Bridgend Athletic U16s hosted Caerleon in a game played with only 13 players a side. The Athletic had 5 players away with the BCOW U16 side in the Netherlands. With forwards playing out of position in the backs the Ath were slow to adapt and found themselves two converted tries adrift in the first quarter. Captain Keegan Thomas levelled the scores crossing for two tries both converted by Isaac Watkins. However, Caerleon scored twice more before half time which sent them in at the interval 24-14 ahead.

The second half was played end to end, but it was the Ath that scored first with a strong run by Rhys Hyde who crossed for a try, again converted by Isaac Watkins. With the deficit down to 3 points the Ath pushed hard but could not break the Caerleon defence. From a good tackle the Ath lost the ball pressing the Caerleon team on their own try line and saw the visitors race 90 meters to score under the posts for a converted try to run out 31-21 winners.

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