Fixture

The Young Saints maintained their impressive start to the season with another excellent performance against the Pitmen of Penallta. This week's opponents would provide sterner opposition than in the season's opening fixture, but the Young Saints produced an excellent display to score another 5 tries, four of which were converted, whilst only conceding one despite being under pressure in patches of the second half.

The game started evenly with both sides winning turnovers, but it was the Saints who created the first real try scoring opportunity. A lineout ball thrown perfectly by Liam Luckett was secured at the top of his jump by Blaide Howells, who was lifted securely by Josh Morris and Dylan Lewis. A maul was formed and the pack drove a few metres before scrum half maestro Madoc Howells released the ball to outside half Joseph Lee, who executed a trade mark backs move to put Caleb Collier into a 2 on 1 situation, which he excuted perfectly, putting Mitchell Watkins in acres of space which he duly took advantage of, hairing down the wing and over the line only to drop the ball in the act of touching down (he would later make amends with some ferocious carrying, and a try of his own in the second half).

Penallta came back at Saint Julians straight away, but the Young Saints forwards started to exert their dominance at the breakdown, and from a resulting turnover Joseph Lee was able to break away to score the first try of the game.

Following this the Saints conceded a try after a loose kick was not dealt with, allowing a chasing Penallta player to dab down.

Despite this setback the Young Saints went back to work, and with them being solid in most facets of the game were able to put their opponents under pressure in defence, resulting in them coughing up possession. This allowed the Saints to have possession, and some strong carrying from Josh Morris, Kieran Addis and Cian Knights allowed the Saints to make their way into the Penallta 22m, which created space out wide which the team exploited with tries for Caleb Collier and Riley Hayward, the latter's score coming just before half time.

The second half started much like the first, with the Saints spending large periods in the opposition 22m. Over exuberance and perhaps a touch of overconfidence meant that they were unable to capitalise on this territory straight away, with a couple of poor decisions taken, but eventually the pressure told and Josh Morris ran in from 20 metres for his first try in a Saints jersey.

The scrum grew in strength as the game wore on, with a couple of wins against the head, which is testament to the work rate of the front row and in particular props Dylan Lewis and Callum Mcquade, the latter only playing his second ever game of rugby in a position that most sane people would stay well clear of. This platform allowed number 8, and eventual man of the match, Blaide Howells to run riot from the base of the scrum, beating defenders with ease and giving his side go forward ball. It was from one of these runs that the ball was eventually worked to Mitchell Watkins to make amends for his earlier faux pas and dab down under the posts for the last score of the game.

Penallta, to their credit, never gave up and battled right up to the final whistle, but the Saints were determined not to concede another score and were successful in shutting out their opponenents in the dying minutes.

All in all a very impressive performance which had the coaches purring with delight at the final whistle. The team performance made it very difficult to pick one man of the match as every player performed their role extremely well. The side now set their sights on their next opponents, local rivals Caerleon, next Sunday.

Full Time

Penallta u13's 7 - 33 Saint Julians u13's

Try Scorers

Morris, Collier, Watkins, Lee, Hayward

Converstions 

Lee (4)

Man of the match

Blaide Howells