Blaenavon RFC - 19

Nantyglo RFC - 6

Blaenavon played newly promoted Nantyglo on Saturday at the Memorial ground, and despite a depleted team managed to win their third game on the trot,

Blaenavon started badly conceding an early penalty, as their re-arranged pack saw several front row members missing and players playing out of position against a much stronger Nantyglo pack.

Blaenavon’s Darren Pearce kicked a penalty to make it 3-3 after 24 minutes, but when the Blaenavon scrum was put under pressure, they gave away a penalty from an unsympathetic referee which Nantyglo kicked to make it 6-3 to the visitors.

Scrum half Ryan bates was doing his utmost to keep Blaenavon going forward with full support from centres Callum Jones and Luke Challenger.

They won a penalty which Darren Pearce slotted over to make it 6-6 at half time.

The second half saw Rhys Long came close to scoring with a clever kick and chase, only to be thwarted by a solid Nantyglo defence.

Some tactical substitutions in the front row saw club stalwart Jason Bright come on which helped to bolster up the creaking Blaenavon scrummage.

A brilliant turn over by captain Wayne Redman, caused Nantyglo to stray offside and present a difficult long range penalty opportunity for Luke Challenger to slot over.

Blaenavon were now in control and a period of dominance ended with full back Richard Dennington scoring a well executed try. Darren Pearce converted, 16-6.

Nantyglo applied the pressure in a series of driving line outs which Blaenavon managed to defend on three occasions despite loosing a centre to the sin bin.

A 14 man Blaenavon dug deep and managed to repel the Nantyglo onslaught, before Luke Challenger, Scott Williams and Callum Jones broke out causing Nanty to give away another Penalty for Darren Pearce to slot over and seal the win.