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^{Most of the Athletic younger age groups welcomed Llantwit Major to Newbridge Fields while the U13's visited Risca. The Older ages had a weekend off.}

Bridgend Athletic Under 7s welcomed Llantwit Major and Valley Ravens to Newbridge Fields. Bridgend Athletic fielded two teams the green & golds. It was a great morning of rugby with all three clubs showcasing great evasion and tagging skills. Stand out players for the Athletic Greens were Charlie Tune, Rohan Davies, Zavier Gardener & Tyler Pascoe who was the Greens star tagger. Stand out players for the Golds were George Evans, Callum Brown & Osian Phillips who was the Golds star tagger. Next up for the 7s is a trip to Llantwit Fardre.

Sunday 25th November saw the Ath’ U8’s playing host to Llantwit Major at Newbridge Fields.

Bridgend yet again boasted a strong squad attendance, significantly outnumbering Llantwit’s squad of 8 players. The Ath’ were split into 3 teams, each taking it in turns to play the visitors while the other 2 played training matches on an adjacent pitch.

In total 3 matches were played against Llantwit, with the Ath’ winning 2 and losing 1, clocking up 13 tries and a modest 42 tags along the way.

Although the Ath’ were victorious overall, it was quite a lacklustre performance, well below the standard the boys are capable of, and have played to so far this season. Defensively they weren’t on the money and afforded the visitors too much space to run and conceded too many soft tries. All the best teams have off-days however and knowing the proud characters in the Ath’ squad, they will undoubtedly want to put that right the next time they play.

Bridgend Athletic Under 9s game against Llantwit Major really was a game of two halves with Bridgend Athletic having to make 14 changes due to their large squad. Bridgend Athletic started strong but lost any continuity having to make so many changes. Unfortunately, the Athletic once again had too many players not contributing defensively allowing Llantwit Major to run in some very soft tries and win the game 65-40.

There were however good defensive displays by Ethan Davies & Osian Kenny followed by Mason Brown, Grayson Whelan, Max Edwards & Seth James. Athletic try scorers were Ashton Davies with 3, Mason Brown, Ethan Davies, Dylan Jones, Seth James & Rory Whyte. Next up for the under 9s is a trip to Llantwit Fardre.

Bridgend Athletic U11’s hosted Llantwit Major. Bridgend played very good rugby in the first half scoring 4 tries and only conceding 1. In the second half Bridgend slowly pushed on scoring another 3 tries.

It was a very cold day, and everyone seemed to be making mistakes and erratic decisions but all in all a very good outcome for Bridgend.

Bridgend Athletic RFC Under 12’s 31 Llantwit Major 5. What a difference a week makes. Bridgend Athletic were quite brilliant against a strong Llantwit Major team. Early exchanges were tight, and it took a break away try from inside his own half by Ioan Hammond to open the scoring.

Some outstanding ball carrying from flankers Josh Ludlow and Tom Drysdale set the momentum and Harrison Harper does what he does best by crashing over from a close distance scrum.

Some trade mark tap penalties from scrum half Ioan Roberts allowed the three quarters Jack Thomas and Joe Bruckel to move the ball to debutant Luke Humphreys to race in for a superb solo effort.

The front five forwards worked very hard, with Thomas Williams making an impact from the bench and Rhys Tucker, James Waite and Ioan Harry making some strong runs and good team rucking. The back row was excellent at retaining possession with Cavern being immovable over the ball.

Playing against his old team, Alfie Creed was fired up and linked up well with Morgan Reese and Ethan Deere and showed good feet as the game started to become more open.

Ioan Hammand and Joe Bruckel started to make plenty of metres and Jack Nyol took advantage of the open space. The Ath were held up five metres out and scrum half Lucas Kenny darted over for a score. Another debutant in Will Jones tackled well and a good carry allowed Kien Tolantino to crash over for the final Ath score.

Playing to last second the Athletic were slightly optimistic and a mistake on their own line allowed Llantwit major to score from the final play.

A superb team performance, with great tackling and running by the whole squad. Jack Thomas was given man of match for a rounded display and great morning off the kicking tee.

The U13’s travelled away to play Risca on Sunday with a number of notable injuries.

However, they took to the field with several players in unfamiliar positions but without a moan in sight.  After a last-minute loss last week any thought of the team still thinking about that game was quickly forgotten as the they took the game to Risca up front and out wide.  After several attacks where the Ath failed to break through, it took some hard running and quick hands to set Rhys H free on the wing for the first try. Then a well worked line out routine by the forwards put Rhydian G in at the corner as he ran hard around the corner to give the Ath a 12-0 half time lead.

The second half started as the first half finished with the Ath on the attack and it wasn’t long before Rhys H was in for his second try of the match.  Then some fantastic handling between forwards and backs created space out wide for Dan S to show a clean pair of heels to put the game out of sight.  By now Risca’s players heads were starting to drop and straight from the kick off Rhys H caught the ball, ran a hard line down the middle of the pitch to run in his third try of the game.  Rhys H fourth try was created from a great kick and chase by the whole back line, with a chip over the top and a kind bounce rewarding the chase allowing Rhys to run in the corner.

There was still time for Risca to play some good rugby pulling the Ath from side to side and allowing them to crash over for a consolation try and a fantastic conversion from the touch line.

The Ath ran out 7-36 winners with 3 tries converted by Charlie R.Special mention to Alex T who played at hooker instead of his usual 10 position to help the team out along with Tate who played his first match for the club after recently joining the squad.

After a hard run of fixtures and a number of injuries in the squad the team have a well-deserved week off next week before the Christmas run in.