BARRY entertained Caerau for the first time in a league fixture at the Reservoir Field last Saturday, with a couple of enforced changes from last week, bringing in Buckland and Evans to outside half and prop respectively.

The home side chose to play up the slope in the first half with the intention of keeping the ball tight and this worked well with a mix of good ball carrying and good touch finding from Buckland when required.

However, the visitors defence was sound and few opportunities to release the backs were available, with the exception of one break involving Perry, Buckland,Tanner and White led to the latter being called back for a foot in touch.

Despite their dogged defence the visitors scrum was slowly being dismantled by the aggressive Barry eight, and it came as no surprise that the home side took the lead after 16 minutes from a pushover try under the posts. The conversion gave Barry a 7-0 lead.

Almost immediately a brilliant break from Buckland with help from Provis saw Poole throw an outrageous dummy to set off on a 50 yard charge to the line only to be halted just short of the whitewash. From the resultant ruck Evans forced himself over for a try duly converted for a 14 point lead.

Play ebbed and flowed with Caerau also launching some good attacks, but Barry would go further ahead with a fine penalty from 45 yards from Adams.

On the half hour following a series of knock-ons, accidental offsides by both teams the ball somehow found Caerau in the home 22 where the defence was breached to give them their opening points of the afternoon.

Half time drew near and having been shocked at conceding a try the home side used their forward dominance to set the backs free and following a nice break from White, Barry nearly scored.

From the defensive scrum the visitors could not hold the Barry pack and after a reset, the referee had no option but to award a penalty try which with the conversion gave the home side a healthy 24-7 lead at half time.

Whether through complacency or lack of concentration Barry had a huge reminder from the kick off, Caerau scrum half seized the loose ball and scythed his way through the home defence to reduce the deficit to ten points.

Barry was attacking with both forwards and backs, but with a mixture of sound defence and poor decision making prevalent were unable to add to their score.

Regretfully the game was halted for some 25 minutes following a neck injury to Owain Poole which required the attendance of an ambulance. It is only proper that we pay tribute to the work done by the Barry Physio Girls whose calmness and professionalism shone through in what was a worrying time for everyone at the ground. We are pleased to say that Owain suffered severe bruising only and was released from hospital that evening.

As expected the game took a little time to warm up again after the break and Barry's dominance upfront would be negated as the visitors opted for uncontested scrums after the loss of their last front row player.

Barry took the opportunity to ring the changes introducing Jones and Hadfield.

The loss of their forward dominance seemed to be causing Barry problems and for some time they appeared to have lost their way unsure of how they wanted to play the game and allowing basic errors to creep in.

Their problems increased when they were reduced to 14 men after a sin bin, a decision which gave the visitors some momentum to launch their own attacks which the home side defended well.

However, this admirable attempt to save the game was to lead to their undoing as Barry took advantage of the resultant space to engineer two late tries. Firstly, following some good back play Adams was on hand to put White over the line with the kick missed.

Caerau had not given up and were unfortunate not to score when a knock on just short of the line thwarted them.

This was to be their last chance as Barry gained territory and a fine break from Perry, who also excelled with his line kicking, found Buckland on his shoulder to score what proved the final points of the game with Barry ending as winners’ by 34-14.

I'm sure the players will realise after today’s game that all sides in the league are going to be competitive and they won't have any easy matches this season.

Next Saturday Barry travel to Penygraig in the First Round of the Swalec Bowl Competition.

A players/supporters bus will leave the Clubhouse at 12.30pm.

Members are reminded that the Annual General Meeting will be held at the Clubhouse on Wednesday, October 1 at 7.30pm.