Barry RFC 38 - Clwb Rygbi 10

A LARGE crowd gathered at the club on Saturday as Barry RFC paid their respect following the death of club chairman Gary Haigh, with an emotional minutes silence prior to the game against Clwb Rygbi.

The occasion was made all the more poignant as the team provided by far their best performance of the season, scoring five tries in a convincing win by 38 points to 10.

Despite the wet conditions the team produced 80 minutes of rugby, which at times found it difficult to distinguish between backs and forwards such was the level of handling skill on show.

Barry opened playing up the slope in the first half and made their intentions known immediately with a series of attacks which, whilst not successful, gave Clwb the warning of what was to come.

In fact it was Clwb who were first to score with a penalty from half-way but Barry were soon back on the attack where a break from Evans gained 40 yards to set-up a ruck which saw Jones held up just short but the recycled ball found White outside to cross for an unconverted try.

Barry attacked from the restart and after three phases found themselves just short of the line before recycling the ball again and as the forwards drove hard Lee was on hand to sneak over in the corner for a try which Scott converted to give Barry a nine point lead.

Had it not been for the brave defending of the visitors Barry would have added to their score, but despite several attempts could not get over the line.

But the break finally came as they camped in the Clwb 22 with a quick ball finding Scott to cross for a converted try and a lead of 19 - 3.

Such had been the domination of Barry that in the first 40 minutes their line had not been threatened due entirely to a forward pack which had stifled their opponents and solid tackling denying any opportunity in attack.

Barry kept up the momentum as the second half began in pouring rain although the slippery ball was making life difficult for both teams.

It was not long before Barry went further ahead as the scrum became dominant creating a solid platform for the backs to attack. A line-out following a penalty saw Barry drive over the line with Evans grounding the ball to give Scott an easy conversion.

A rare Clwb attack broke down and a clever chip from Perry was well collected by Adams who found White and Jones in support for the latter to cross the whitewash for another converted try.

However hard the visitors tried they were unable to crack the Barry defence as the game became scrappy due to the now horrendous conditions.

Barry brought on all their substitutes with the game won, but the quality of their play didn't suffer as they continued to attack the Clwb line.

One such attack saw Evans cross for his second try of the afternoon which was not converted but left Barry leading 38 - 3 with 10 minutes left.

With the game out of reach Clwb opted for all out attack and put together a series of attacks without much success.They were finally rewarded with a consolation try late in the game as their backs created the space to cross for a converted try.

They continued in this vein for the final minutes of the game but their efforts went unrewarded and left the final score at 38 - 10.

A great squad performance which built on last week's and with the team growing in confidence Barry are finally showing the form that took them close to promotion last season. If they can maintain this it can only be a matter of time before they climb the table.

Next Saturday Barry travel to Gilfach Goch with the coach leaving the Club at 12.30pm.

Lottery numbers this week were 7, 12, 18 and 22 which again failed to produce a winner. This week's prize will be £2,800.