By Whaley Shark
January 30 2011

The LV= Cup gives us the chance to see the occasional Welsh side at EP, so it's a change from the usual fare of the AP. It's also so complicated that it makes nuclear physics seem straightforward. So there are two reasons to turn up on a cold late January evening then....

The first half was memorable only for the two packs’ inability to scrummage decently, leading to endless resets and some mysterious penalties, and for a mighty punch-up just before half time. I’ve no idea what prompted that, but Nick Macleod and Dragons’ Scott Morgan both went into the bin, Macleod with a nasty shiner. Whatever the referee said about kissing and making up clearly didn’t work either, because they had another exchange of pleasantries while they were both serving their time. We went in 6-3 down at half time.

The game came alight after half time though. First, from a midfield lineout, Dragons ripped through a brittle defence and sent right wing Adam Hughes over. Then, as we chipped into touch in the Dragons’ 22 an ambled up to the lineout, Dragons took a quick lineout to set left wing Aled Brew free. He chipped over our defence, Rob MiIller just managed to fall on the ball and we scrambled it to touch, giving Dragons a good attacking position. They ran through a few phases in our 22, spun the ball right and Adam Hughes crossed for his second try in ten minutes.  Trying to be clever, Nick Macleod switched the restart away from the forwards, Aled Brew took it in space and ran it straight back. A bit of quick interpassing sent them round our last defender and Brew scored on the left. Two tries against in two minutes and, after the conversion, we were 25-3 down with less than half an hour to go. Typical, I thought, I’ve frozen for the first half, moaning about a dull game, now it’s been exciting for ten minutes, but the excitement’s all been the wrong sort, and the game’s as good as over!

The next ten minutes were pretty even, though Dragons scored a further penalty. However, from the restart after the Newport penalty, we built a good position in the Dragons’ 22 and Henry Thomas crossed.  Although Dragons had another flurry, they gave away a penalty, which we put into touch on their 22. We kept the pressure on, Dragons were penalised again and we went for the corner. We worked the ball left, then right, stretching the defence, and putting our Henry over again for his second try of the night. In the last ten minutes, we threw everything at the Dragons, running from our own 22, taking quick penalties, and exerting great pressure. At one point we crossed, but the ball was held up. The Dragons’ defence was pretty desperate, conceding a series of penalties as we battered at their line, and also seeing one of their players sinbinned. Finally, from a tap penalty, Aston Croall battered his way over. The conversion, which would have got us back to 22-28, went wide though and, with just a minute left, our attempt to salvage a losing bonus failed as we knocked on at the restart.

Overall, I think we lost to a very streetwise Dragons side- it struck me that their players very frequently ended up “trapped” on our side of a pileup, their rush defence was, being polite, very quick off the mark, and in the last ten minutes, their defence played to the edge of the law and perhaps a little beyond. No objection to that from me though- if you do it and survive, then well done. Doubtless, our young players will have learned from the experience, and the rules of the LV are so far beyond me I don’t know whether the result is of any great significance. We’ll doubtless find out next weekend. Marc Jones as Pete Anglesea’s Man of the Match- Yep, that’s fine by me.