Fixture

Another Hard Fought Victory 35 points  – 25 Points

Old Illtydian RFC travelled for another away game to renew acquaintances at Cefn Coed RFC.

This was a hard fought but exciting match with both sides having a real go. Early skirmishes were as expected as both sides got stuck in, with both sets of forwards having a right old battle! Both defences were having to work hard and it was from some great forward play and inter passing between forwards and backs saw hooker Carl Fish go over for the first try.

The Illts forwards with man of the match Kevin Tallis leading from the front took the game to Cefn and as a result outside half Sean Cochlin was able to slot a number of Penalties in the first half but the opposition never gave up and grabbed a couple of tries after some defensive errors keeping them in the game. Shane Young once again carried well as did Rhys Hutching at number 8 and their was some great tackling and support play from Stu Wilby, Mikey Hiscocks. Adam Taylor and Chris Erickson.

In the backs, Lewis Andrews, Josh Williams and Scott Gregory were playing well, with some great kicking out of hand by Sean Coughlin which kept the Cefn forwards mostly in retreat. To be fair the Cefn forwards never gave up and battled for every ball making this a real battle! After some slick passing Illts winger Arthur Mills scampered over to grab a try and push the Illts further ahead.

The Illts stuck at it and got to the end of the first half in front.

Illts 19 – 10 up at half time

With Cefn Coed taking a full 10 minutes at the break it was obvious they would come out firing and this of course they did. The first 20 minutes was a real slog with both teams going at each other and plenty of mistakes were being made by both sides. Sean Cochlin kept the scoreboard ticking over with some confident kicks. Ryan Healy was once again impressive and his trickery and fine running nearly got him a couple of tries but the Cefn defence held out.

With their vociferous support Cefn Coed came back hard and clawed their way back into the game with a couple more tries bringing the score to 25 – 25 making the end of the game a bit of a cliff hanger which was not expected as Illts had been in control for most of the game. The final few minutes saw Scrum Half James Harris working hard and the Illts subsequently grab a penalty taking them ahead. The Illts strong bench was introduced including Ryan Harford and Phil Morse in the forwards and Dan Savager and Alfred Bijek in the backs with Ben Evans coming on making his debut in the back row. A huge effort by the Illts saw a surge into the Cefn half and after some excellent forward play it was Lewis Andrews who crashed over under the posts, converted by Sean Cochlin. The final score of 35 to 25 was a fair reflection of the game but Cefn Coed made this an excellent end to end game of rugby.