Albion Apprentices 31
Pontyclun 5

For those of you that went home thinking the season was over after the Albion v Newbury match, you missed a good match. Gareth Jones, Coach, said that if he had known that the Newbury second team were pulling out of the Canterbury Shield match just 24 hours before he did he would have been able to move the apprentice match to before the main event.  This would have boosted the crowd considerably.

The game was very physical  and on several occasions things flared up, sometimes spotted by the referee and sometimes not. The Albion side had never played as a team before were as the visitors finished at the top of their league. It was not surprising that the hosts took a few minutes to start playing as a seamless team.

Albion were given an early opportunity to take the lead in the second minute but the attempt at the posts Ivybridge's Lewis Patterson failed on his first attempt at the posts. 

With Albion  now in control of the open play and moving the ball around at almost every opportunity winger Morgan Andrews, who plays his rugby for Devonport services, was on the end of a well worked move to pick up 5 points in the left hand corner.

Just 5 minutes later Lewis Patterson made no mistake and added three points from a penalty.

Outside centre Josh Perkins, one of the ten players from Ivybridge College, outpaced the Pontyclun defence  to capitalise on a kick and chase move. With Lewis adding the extra 2 points Albion were 15 - 0 up within 25 minutes.

Before the half was up Chey Bryce, son of coach Gareth 'Chuggs' Jones was the player with the ball as an Albion trade mark driving maul drove the visitors back 20 metres before Chey broke off the back close to the whitewash.

Prop Keith Barlow broke through a number of challenges to score the bonus point try, well if there were bonus points in the match. The final score of the half and the home side went into the turn round 25 - 0 up.

With the job done all players were given at least 20 minutes on the pitch.

Allbion picked a further two penalties and did allow the visitors to score  single try in the second half.

Paul Philips Earned the Ashcroft Group man of the match award for a strong display at inside centre.

Gareth Jones was very happy with the performance and result "it was very pleasing for a side which was playing in for the first time to gel together well this was helped by the Ivybridge college players. its pleasing to see a lot of young talented players from clubs close to Plymouth. with a possibility of these players progressing to the warriors and then even the first team."

Gareth went on to talk about future training days "we shall be running the training days again this summer break to start selection for the training which we myself and Tony Boyle have run every other Tuesday nights at Albion throughout the season."

To see match photos click on the Link

Squad - Nathan Wonnacott ( Devonport Services), Lewis Patterson ( Ivybridge College), Josh Perkins ( Ivybridge College), Paul Phillips ( Ivybridge College), Morgan Andrews ( Devonport Services), Tommy Newman ( Ivybridge College), Phil Giles ( St Austell) Craig Shore ( Ivybridge College), Chey Bryce ( Ivybridge College), Keith Barlow ( Devonport Services) Addison Lockley ( Ivybridge College), Dave Ewers ( Ivybridge College) Jonny Stephens ( (Capt) Bude) Cameron Thompson ( Ivybridge College), Chris Swainson ( Ivybridge College)  Replacements - Jack Regan ( Launceston), Warren Rumble ( Launceston), Edward Aldridge ( Launceston) Chris Stone ( Devonport Services), Fred Hayward ( Launceston), Jack Holding ( Liskeard & Looe), Ross Bailey ( Devonport Services), Nathan Reeves ( Launceston)

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