Croesyceiliog 17 Llanwit Fardre 35
29 April 2006
Croesy finished their season as they have played most of it, showing skill and promise but ultimately lacking that extra something that turns promise into wins. As a result, with Rumney hammering Brynithel by 58-10, we are still not safe from relegation and could go down if Rumney and Brynithel win their two remaning games, although we currently have a superior points ratio to Brynithel.
It was a familiar scene as Croesy set off as though they meant business and for the first 20 minutes they were the only team in it. Unfortunately they came away from this long period of dominance with nothing to show for their efforts and as has so often happened when attack was turned into defence they started leaking tries. The visitors were 14-0 up at the break but you still felt Croesy were doing enough to get back into the game. Backrow forwards Chris Williams and Steven Thomas caused no end of trouble with their strong direct running as did influencial captain Anthony Axford.
Full back Darryl Carter had a straight forward chance after the break to reduce the deficit but his penalty in front of the posts drifted just wide and from the drop out Fardre went long and ended up going over from the resulting lineout. So instead of 14-3 it was 21-0 which soon became 28-0. Croesy finally got on the scoreboard with a well-worked try for right wing John Misljen. The flier came off his wing to look for work and took a well-timed pass in the centre which put him into the gap and over for his 8th try in his last 8 games.
This gave Croesy confidence and they were soon back on the attack. The forwards drove a maul 15 metres to the visitors line where Llanwit were guilty of deliberately collapsing, giving the referee no choice but to award a penalty try. Croesy were playing a high tempo game now and the back three of Misljen, left wing Matt Hiatt and full back David Davies (who had moved from centre following injury to Carter) were always dangerous on the counter. Unfortunately, as they looked as though they might close the gap further an interception try for the visitors outside half killed Croesy off. To their credit they kept battering away at Fardre and you could not fault the Croesy commitment. This was finally rewarded with a try for Hiatt as they worked the narrow side and he cut back on the angle.
This was Croesy's 70th try of the season, a total which should be enough to secure at least a mid-table position but with over 700 points conceded our defence has let us down badly and we have left ourselves having to wait a little longer to know our fate. Rumney travel to Rhydyfelin on 2nd May and host Brynmawr on 5th May while Brynithel are at home to Llantrisant on 6th May and to Newport Saracens on 9th May. Rumney have a better points ratio than us which would obviously improve if they won their remaining games so they would go above us but Brynithel currently have a ratio of 0.48 compared to our 0.66 so they would need a combined total of just over 100 hundred points to overtake us, which seems unlikely.
At the end of the game coach Chris Garrett called players and committee together and thankd everyone for the commitment this season. He said it had been a difficult season as we have worked hard to gel with new players and new coaches in the first year together but he couldn't fault anyone's efforts. We are all on a learning curve at the club and are pulling together as "Team Croesyceiliog". He was confident that if everyone stuck together and we had a good pre-season we would do well next season.