Fixture

Aberystwyth RFC | 1st Team 15 - 16 Felinfoel RFC | 1st Team

Match Report
30 October 2019 / Team News

Very Close

Aberystwyth RFC 15 - 16 Felinfoel RFC

Aberystwyth took on unbeaten, top-of-the-table, Felinfoel on Saturday and made them work very hard for their narrow win. Although Aber outscored the visitors by two tries to one they were too generous with penalties and Felinfoel’s kicker, Aled Roberts, took full advantage of it. This was the difference between the two sides.

Felinfoel kicked off and Aber, with an aimless clearance kick, immediately returned possession to them. For the first 30 minutes the visitors were camped in Aber’s half and retained possession very well. During this period it was only Aber’s stonewall defence that prevented Felinfoel from scoring, as, to a man, they tackled and pressured better than they have done all season.

0n the half hour mark, entirely against the run of play, Ian Ellis on Aber’s left wing, intercepted a pass on his 22 metre line and raced to score under the posts. Llyr Thomas converted and Aber went 7 – 0 up.  Confusion among the home forwards in fielding the ball from the kick-off gave the visitors another opportunity to regain possession and make ground. Again they pressed hard on the home line, kept the ball and made Aber’s defence work very hard.

Felinfoel’s try came from a scrum 15 metres from Aber’s line. The ball was fed out to outside half Roberts; he broke through the first line of defence and fed inside centre Josh Edward who went over near the posts. Roberts’ conversion brought the score to 7 – 7. There was then an exchange of penalty kicks between Llyr Thomas for Aber and Roberts for the visitors, to level the score at 10 – 10 at half time.

Aber had made life difficult for themselves in the first half by keeping the ball too tight. Centres Hughes and Evans, with wingers Ellis and Coulton outside them, had shown that they were a real threat on the rare occasions that they got the ball. Also, far too many of the home side’s clearance kicks from defence failed to find touch and enabled Felinfoel to counterattack from deep.

The penalty count was high on both sides; the difference was that Felinfoel were able to kick theirs from striking distances whereas Aber were usually too far from the posts for their efforts to be kickable. Felinfoel’s outside half Roberts not only scored with every kick at goal, he also controlled the game with his precise kicking from hand.  

On the stroke of half-time an injury had forced Aber’s Lee Gower off the field injured to be replaced by Lewis Ellis-Jones. He was fresh and his tireless work led the way for the host’s tiring forwards to follow. Felinfoel though kept the pressure on Aber setting up phase after phase, launching attacks and creating opportunities. Again it was only the home side’s relentless defending that kept them out.

Felinfoel again forced Aber back and gained a penalty which Roberts converted to put the visitors ahead for the first time in the match at 10 – 13. This however, was short-lived as Aber returned the pressure and a fine 35 metre jinking run down the right touchline saw James Coulton score a fine try in the corner. Crucially, the difficult conversion failed but Aber were back in the lead at 15 – 13. But Aber’s glory was short-lived as Felinfoel sealed victory with a 20 metre penalty when an Aber scrum was in retreat and the ball was handled on the ground. 

The score shows what a very close game it was; but Felinfoel will wonder how they came so close to losing it after winning so much possession and holding so much territory. The answer is that they couldn’t penetrate Aber’s resolute and excellent defence. This tackling wasn’t pretty and not technically sound, but the tacklers stopped the ball carriers time and again, and that was all that was asked of them.

Up front, with Arwel Lloyd and Bryn Shepherd missing, Aber’s scrum was under pressure throughout the game and they gave away a few penalties as a result. For the second week running, their lineout work was again weak and, despite good work by Dan Binks and Lewis Ellis-Jones, misguided tapping of the ball back to an inexperienced scrum half did not help. But in the loose the pack were energetic and made life difficult for their determined opponents.

Behind the scrum Aber’s backs rarely saw the ball going forward and so were unable to gain any momentum in attack. When they were able to do so, they looked more threatening than their opponents. But it was a case of what might have been.

 

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