By Paul french
May 10 2005

What a tremendous weekend of cup rugby, the script could not have been better written, as one Quinnell bowed out another emerged in similarly dramatic style.

Contrasting Emotions © Imagevision SM

Trailing 24-8 with ten minutes to go, Llanelli produced three tries out of nothing to turn round the deficit, yet they still had to rely on a long range Dai Flanagan penalty miss, five minutes into injury time. Shortly before scrum half Chris McDonald had completed a remarkable turnaround for Llanelli, with a well made break, to send Scott Quinnell and his coaching team into raptures.

Having produced some scintillating attacking play the men from Rhondda had looked odds on to complete a repeat of their 2002 cup heroics. First Dragons' bound win Richard Fussell produced a moment of individual skill, collecting his own chip through, and then offloading to Dafydd Lockyear to score. Another long distance score from Darren Berry looked to have put the trophy out of sight, veteran Neil Boobyer and then Bryn Griffiths in his final match in Scarlet colours gave the Turks' a glimmer of light, of which they duly took advantage of.

As far the Scarlets' making it a West double went, it was not going exactly to plan with recent Wales call up Matthew Jones putting the Ospreys into a commanding twelve point lead at Stradey Park. Yet an opportunist break from Dwayne Peel handed John Davies a score to give the home side crucially a lifeline just before the interval.

New number ten prodigy Ceiron Thomas traded penalties with opposite number Jones to leave the match well in the balance. 21 year old Thomas who could very well have been in Cardiff for the semi pro final, added another penalty as a Brent Cockbain sin binning swung the match in their favour.

Continued pressure finally told, and another semi pro player in Gavin Quinnell barged his way over with a decisive score, to book a cup final with Munster at Lansdowne road next Saturday.

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Despite a strong turnaround at Stradey in the last two weeks, this summer is already guaranteed to see some big changes in playing personnel. Confirmation of Dafydd James's return would appear only to be a formality, whilst South African lock Hottie's Louw signature is in doubt following reports in France suggesting that problems with paper work could derail the move.

Another bit of gossip Pontypridd back rower Dan Godfrey is strongly being linked with a move to the region.

Any other gossip let us know on the message board.