WRU Plate
Ammanford 40 Pill Harriers 7
Ammanford welcomed Pill Harriers, of Newport, and their many supporters to the Rec for the first ever meeting in the WRU Plate competition.
As expected Pill arrived with a strong pack but the flowing movement of the home backs managed to run in 6 tries. Ammanford started well and within the first five minutes they spread the ball wide to allow wing Mike Rees to score.
Pill slowly grew into the game and their strong pack started to dominate both in the scrum and lineout. This resulted in growing pressure on the Ammanford line, but although getting the worse of the set phases the home pack were ferocious in the loose, led bravely by flanker Steffan Rees who tackled everything that moved in a Pill shirt and avoiding the home line being crossed.
After weathering the storm Ammanford came back positively and an electric break by young outside half Ryan Williams was finished off by full back Steff Howells, Williams added the extra points, 12-0. Williams was becoming more influential and having ripped the ball off the Pill centre he picked up the loose ball and scampered up field taking play to the visitor’s line. The ball was quickly recycled to allow centre Ceri Rees to go over under the posts, giving Ammanford a 19-0 half time lead.
Pill Harriers had not come all the way across south Wales for nothing and for the first quarter of the second half play was permanently inside the home 22. Their reward was a nice try from their wing following a clever little grubber kick through the Ammanford defence.
The home supporters were getting a little uneasy with the situation, but a run from deep by Howells split the home defence and was finished by skipper Chris Morris, Williams added the extra points, 26-7. Morris from the kick off burst through the defence and after some sharp inter-passing Rees went over for his second try. With their tails up Ammanford took advantage of one of Pills few bad line outs to move the ball and reward Rees with his hat trick try and finish the game 40-7 up. Ryan Williams was rightly named Man of The Match.
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