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Division 1 West Central Bridgend Athletic welcomed English Div 2 North side Hull RUFC to the Morganstone Brewery Field for a preseason friendly. The occasion saw former Bridgend half backs Gerald Williams and Gary Pearce reunited on opposing sides. Gerald is a coach with BARFC while Gary is Director of Rugby of the professional North of England side.

The match was preceded by a minute’s silence to respect the memory of Athletic Chairman Andrew Tellem. The line up with the visitors boosted by recruiting Fijians, Samoans and Argentine players emphasised the difference in stature of the two sides with the Hull side in most cases at least 3 stone heavier and 3” taller than the home side.

For an hour the Athletic made light of their size disadvantage leading 12-7, before the Hull side with a bench equally as big as the starting line-up possessed the power to take advantage of the Athletic changes and tiredness creeping in competing against more physically endowed opponents. The Athletic first choice front row of props veteran Wayne Fooks, Matthew Muir and hooker Lee Murphy supported by locks Ben Cording and the experienced Jonathon Stoker more than held their own in the scrums, with Cording and Stoker securing their own line out ball. The visitors with no set piece joy changed their front row after 30 minutes.

The Athletic made a very positive start to the game. From a line out just outside the Hull 22 hooker Lee Murphy found lock Stoker. The much lighter Athletic side surprised the visitors with a well-executed driving maul for 20 metres that was illegally halted just short of the try line. Outside half Luke Bevan kicked the resultant penalty to touch for a five-metre line out. This time Murphy found Cording and a driving maul at pace crossed the try line for flanker Ben Howe to gain the first Athletic try of the season. Howe leading the side for the fourth successive season showed he is again putting his hand up to replicate his last campaign as the Athletics’ leading try scorer. Bevan converted to give his side a 7-point advantage.

The Athletic continued taking the game to their opponents. Scrum half Aled Thomas was lively in getting his back line moving and disrupting his opposite numbers ball. Bevan ran and kicked astutely bringing centres Tom Jenkins and Tom Davies into play. Davies made a series of breaks only just held short of the line while Jenkins was to the fore front in tackling very large forwards and backs. Wing Joe Patterson ran hard when the opportunity arose and Hywel Cosby and Robin Davies also played well.

On the 20-minute mark Hull launched a succession of very powerful attacks on the Athletic line. Although the Athletic defence mainly stood firm they were finally breached when centre Keane Naylor crossed. Outside half Simon Huddlestone’s conversion levelled the scores.

Good carries by locks Jonathon Stoker and Ben Cording along with the back row of Howe, Ben Davies and Will Petchell continued to cause the Hull side problems. Centre Tom Davies broke past three players and was held just short of the try line with his attempted potential try scoring offload going forward in contact. The half ended all square at 7-7.

Again 5 minutes into the second half Hull were penalised at a ruck just inside their 22. The ever-alert scrum half Aled Thomas took a quick tap penalty and ran across field where he found outside half Bevan who skipped through a tackle and crossed to give the Athletic a 12-7 advantage.

The Athletic managed to maintain this lead till the hour mark. They had rung the changes to give an inexperienced front row of youngsters Morgan Clemett, Callum Swinford and Joshua Evans game time. Also, Will Barraclough had come on in the back row for the injured Will Petchell and scrum half Matthew Hobby and full back Cameron Lewis from last season’s youth team were brought into the firing line.

The power of the Hull scrum then came into play and with front foot ball and winning penalties they started to make their physicality count. Very quick full back Mike Adlard quickly crossed for two tries and as the Athletic tired. Two late tries from Arthur Lennon and Mike Goodwin with two conversions gave the score line a distorted image of the effort the Athletic had put in.

Head coach John Apsee along with fellow coaches Stuart Morris and David Williams and Gerald Williams were delighted with the Athletic performance. They have not played against such a well-endowed physical side in both Division 1 West Central or last season’s Div 1 East Central and are unlikely to have to compete against such sides this season, so their performance gives optimism for the coming season.

The coaches will have a better opportunity to gauge their preparations for Div 1 West Central this season when the team face Div 1 East Central rivals St Joseph’s away  this Saturday Aug 24^th During an unbeaten 10 match winning run at the end of last season the Athletic were given two very hard games by a physical St Joseph’s side that played very much in the Athletic fashion before securing two close home 25-15 and away 22-19  victories.