CONFERENCE LEAGUE SOUTH : TORFAEN TIGERS 52 ALL GOLDS CLS 16 with League Tables

By Chris Wilson at Cwmbran RFC

Torfaen Tigers grabbed their third win of the season as they fought back from an early 10-0 deficit to overcome a depleted young All Golds side.

It was a double sin-binning that tweaked the Tigers’ tail as they had started sluggishly and barely seen the ball until Callum Bradbury and Gareth Drew came to blows. After that, they were galvanised and scored on their first possession before taking a lead into the interval.

They extended it at regular intervals as the All Golds played most of the game with a bare 13 players following a nasty eye injury to debutant Tom Chipchase.

The All Golds’ first two tries were superbly constructed, well-taken and promised much for a profitable day in the Welsh sunshine.

The scoring started with barely a minute gone. Archie Gibbs’ kick off eluded the defence and from the goal-line dropout, Bradbury put Connor Jones through a gap to score.

Gibbs added the goal but could not improve the All Golds’ second try scored by Sam Hodge who ran a great line off Gibbs’ pass to run in unopposed from 40 metres out.

The Tigers had not had the ball in hand when tempers flared and the sides were temporarily reduced to 12 men each. They were awarded the penalty and Micki Witts forced his way over for the first of his three tries for the day at the end of their first set of tackles.

The Tigers were almost immediately reduced to 11 men when Tom Matthews was penalised for leading with the elbow on Chipchase causing the eye injury that ended his involvement.

From then, the All Golds battled hard on a hot day with the bare 13 players. The visitors had a chance to extend their lead but Dieter Thomas’ pass to Hector Silva was ruled forward.

They never gave up but the Tigers simply had too much in the tank. Former All Gold triallist Dan Davies was proving a handful on the left and only desperate last ditch defence from Paris Thomas and then Hodge prevented further Tigers’ scores.

From the second, Hodge was sinbinned for going too high on the elusive Tiger.

He was off the field when Jarad Hinnem pulled the scores level with a try but the sides were back to full strength when Mike Edwards went over to give the Tigers a lead they never looked like surrendering.

Playing down the slope in the second half, the Tigers soon set about building their lead and Witts scored twice in the opening four minutes to effectively seal the result.

Cummins and Hinnem added further scores before Mitchell Dent powered over for a consolation try after Dai Thomas had been fortunate not to be shown a card for leading with a forearm.

However, Tom Matthews scored after the All Golds made a mess of the restart and could have extended their lead but Ben Williams knocked on in trying to touch down a kick to the corner.

There was no further scoring as the sapping heat took its toll until the final couple of minutes when Louie Pengelly wrestled his way over to score, Cummins adding his eighth and final goal of the day.

WELSH CONFERENCE

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