Fixture

Dolgellau 8 Sports 9 

The Sports and a big following of supporters travelled to North Wales on Saturday for the 5th round of the Bowl competition against a formidable Dolgellau side.
There was much emotion surrounding the game well before the kick off as a minute’s silence was diligently observed for Andrew Chinn OBE, our past President who had passed away last Thursday. There was very much of a feeling that the chosen squad were “doing it in honour of Andrew”.
As expected the big Dolgellau forwards were always going to be a ‘handful’ but the Sports were more than ready for them and for 15 minutes the Sports put them under pressure as they went through what seemed endless phases of tight play. This resulted a couple of early penalty chances for Josh Davies. The first failed but the second took the visitors into a well earned lead.

The Sports captured deep field position time and time again and backed their deep kicks up with great ball chasing from the backrow of Wilson, Rees and Evans. This ensured no counter attack of any threat from Dolgellau for the whole half. From the touch line it looked as if the Sports defence was containing the running threes of Dolgellau with comparative ease. Another kick from Davies unexpectedly missed which let Dolgellau off the hook and gave them some first real field position and as the half ended they grabbed a well taken penalty to level the scores.

The Sports continued to ask all the questions in the second half with Matthew Donnelly and Rhys Obbard in the second row doing massive hard yards gains. The Sports threes were not as fluent as they have been of late but there was always danger for the opposition when Leigh Roderick added pace to the line. But Dolgellau were strong in defence. Gethyn Rosser-Stanford is not the biggest of centers but his tackling was outstanding as well as his obvious pace. After 10 minutes of the half Josh Davies re-took the lead at 3-6 with an easy penalty for him after a great defensive mark by Callum Griffiths had allowed the Sports to clear their line and once more pressurise home side. Against the run of play a poor piece of communication by the Sports threes allowed the Dolgellau winger to hack a fumbled ball along the heavy pitch and with the Sports, and the referee wrong footed, he just had the pace to get his hand to the ball over the try line. This was quite suspect, as the referee was well back and many bodies between him and the “try”. The kick failed but the home side unexpectedly had the lead at 8-6 with 15 minutes to go.

This was a spur to the Sports but also raised the game of Dolgellau who now saw victory very much in their hands. The Sports play now went into overdrive as they recognised that their finishing had under-performed on the day. It was only great defence that kept them from a try. But once more out of character Davies missed two chances to win the game until at last, pure pressure by the Sports allowed another penalty chance which Davies did not miss and the Sports lead 8-9. With just minutes left the drama continued to unveil as the Sports tackled with really great pride and we’d like to think Mr Chinn was smiling watching them. The final scrum, with 10 seconds on the clock, saw scrum half James Donovan leave the field with cramp. This allowed Andy Gill to step up as scrum half, all that was needed was to get the ball in. Out. And in touch. But we LOST that scrum. Now Dolgellau had their final chance but the Sports were not going to let this one slip. The tackling was a fierce as if it was the first minute of the game and when the final whistle went although it was close on points, the Sports were deserved winners of a great game of rugby.

Next week league action away to Neath Athletic and I have it from a reliable source that Andy Gill is not thinking of moving to scrum half for next season!