Replacement game a one-sided affair (From Barry And District News)

Replacement game a one-sided affair

10:30am Thursday 25th October 2012 in Sport

DUE TO another 'let down' for the Barry Youth rugby side, a friendly game was quickly arranged at Maesteg - a club whose senior team’s fortunes of late have not boded well.

Their newly resurrected youth team’s strengths and skills were an unknown quantity and, playing on the large (flat) Old Parish Ground, was a great experience for the Barry team.

Barry were surprised to find that, after only 10 minutes, they were three unconverted scores up - two by captain Luke O’Sullivan and one from an outrageous dummy by Blake Wall which created a huge gap he darted through.

From a scrum Barry won a heel against the head and quick hands down the blind saw Tom Adams go over the line for Barry’s fourth try. It was only after Jamie Oaten broke through a tackle and ran in from 40 metres that outside half Jack Legg managed his first conversion from five attempts.

Fortunes changed and Maesteg challenged the Barry line for a good five minutes before their big No 8 picked up from the base of a five metre scrum and scored. Coaches and supporters cheered wildly for the brave effort but this was to be their only score of the day.

Just before the break outside-half Legg pounced on a ball spilled from a ruck and made a solo run to give Barry a 37-5 half-time lead.

Maesteg continued to battle strongly but, a short period into the second half, replacement scrum half Emyr Byrne sniped from a breakdown, deftly passed outside and, with two more passes, Brad White was over for his second try which was converted. Then, straight from the restart, a series of passes saw White cross again. The final score arrived when Mathew O’Sullivan took a clean pass out on the wing, raced away from despairing tackles and then cut back inside for a try; surrogate kicker Lucas Davies, the hooker, made the conversion with a drop goal attempt.

There are no bragging rights to an uneven contest such as this and Barry’s team and coaches wish the young Maesteg squad the very best for the future.

Barry squad: Blake Wall, David Evans, Mathew O Sullivan, Brad White, Lucas Davies, Rhidian Mepham, Tom Adams, Jack Legg, Rhys Burnett, Mitchell Scott, Kieran Davies, Sion Vidal, Jamie Oaten, John Miles, Emyr Byrne, Jake Goodfellow and Luke O'Sullivan.