Gutsy Youth through to final  - 05/05/2010 - Ystrad Rhondda (Taff Rhondda Merit SF)

TAFF RHONDDA MERIT CUP SEMI FINAL
LLANHARAN YOUTH 12 YSTRAD RHONDDA YOUTH 10
On paper this should have been victory for the Ystrad Rhondda side who play in a higher level of the Blues region and had defeated the home team 38-14 in a cup match earlier in the season.
But a game that served up a fairly sterile first half exploded into incident packed action after half time, with Zach O’Driscoll’s men outstanding in their big hearted defence, frequently knocking back bigger ball carriers.
Harley Thomson’s boot hit over for penalties to pave the way fro victory against the two tries scored by Alex Bailey in the first half and Carl Williams in the second, but there was a dramatic end to the game.
It began with an Ystrad head butt under the nose of referee Justin Williams, the offence instantly triggering a mass brawl that took some time to control;. When calm was restored the Merthyr official, aided by the observations of his touch judges, issued red cards to three men from each side.
Llanharan were 12-10 up, the game about to enter stoppage time and there was yet more tension as in the tenth minute of the added on period Ystrad broke up field and were awarded a 40 metres penalty. It was the last kick of the game and would have won the tie for the Gelligaled outfit, but Alex Webber looked on agonisingly as his kick drifted wide and Llanharan were through to meet Tonyrefail in the final.
Late arrival Webber was a second half replacement after failing to make the kick off and orchestrated much of his team’s play, but he was unable to rectify a glaring deficiency of the side’s inability to capitalise on kicks – in the first half a conversion under the posts was missed and straight forward penalties ignored in favour of field position.
To be fair to Llanharan, when they were in possession they looked to have far more subtlety than the opposition, typified by Wales Under 18 cap Thomson’s second half penalty that came after a dangerous attack in which Chris Williams and Scott Malone were prominent.
And so this gutsy set of players can now add a cup final appearance to their achievement of winning their league, a fine season by any standard.
Llanharan : Harley Thomson, Rhydian Worgan, Keegan Rees, Paul Songhurst, Alex Hughes, Chris Williams, Ross Pritchard, Sam Llewellyn, Sam Pick, Rhys Haines, James Langdon, Ioan Thomson, Lloyd Glass, Scott Malone, Zach O’Driscoll.
Reps: Gethin Cashmore, James Hughes, Owain Howe, Jamie Williams, Scott Jones, Daniel Burton.
(Coach’s report to follow)

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