Neath V Maesteg
Saturday 8th January 2005, 2.30pm KO

MATCH REPORT (by Phil Space)

NEATH 50 MAESTEG 23
Neath gained much-needed match action from this hastily-arranged friendly against Division One leaders Maesteg and ran out fairly comfortable winners by 8 tries to 3 in an entertaining game that warmed the spectators on a chill afternoon.

The Blacks fielded a very young squad including 8 players who were in youth rugby last season and handed the captaincy to winger Aled Brew who, at 18, became the youngest ever captain of the Welsh All Blacks. Two newcomers were introduced in full back Andrew Banfield (Loughor and Loughborough University) and Hefin Evans (Llanelli) and both did well enough to merit future opportunities.

Maesteg gave them a good workout especially at the scrums and at the mauls but even into the wind in the first-half generally Neath had too much pace - the Blacks led 22-6 at halftime and when they were able to put the ball through the phases looked very good indeed.

Impressive in the lively Neath pack were No.8 Tom Smith and fit-again lock Ben Davies. Ian Evans was a dominant figure at the linesout and at the other end of the age-scale prop Paul Jones showed much of his old dash and scored a textbook try after Lee Beach collected a pinpoint cross-kick from fellow replacement Pat Horgan.

Captain for the day Brew and centre Aled Bevan bagged two tries each, hooker Andy Littlehales, wing Nick Jones, Ben Davies and Paul Jones got the 8 Neath tries with Bevan (3) and James Hook (2) adding conversions.

Maesteg competed well throughout and were rewarded with tries by replacement hooker Lee Williams (2) and Chris Beck with outside-half Mark David converting one and kicking two penalties.

Useful as the exercise was for Neath, the visitors were less pleased after suffering a few injuries including the sad loss of ex-All Blacks, Wales and Lions centre Allan Bateman with a broken arm after 25 minutes.

Neath Team :- Andrew Banfield; Aled Brew (captain), Aled Bevan, Andrew Bishop (Wayne Mitchell), Nick Jones; James Hook (Patrick Horgan), Mark Davies (Martin Roberts); Paul Jones, Andy Littlehales (Ed Shervington), Craig Mitchell; Ben Davies, Ian Evans; Andy Llewellyn, Tom Smith (Hefin Evans), John McPhail (Lee Beach) Replacement - Cai Griffiths

Maesteg Team:
15. P Morgan 14. M Jeffries 13 A Bateman 12. A Brown 11. G John 10. M David 9. R Morgan (Capt) 1. G Edwards 2.G Thomas 3. Craig Hopkins 4. Paul Standing 5. G Ronan 6 . G Bartlett 8. M Wareham 7. M Sainsbury Replacements:- L Paget, N Walsh, G Holmes, J Devereaux, A Hutchings, A Howells, L Williams, S Tremlett, K Baldwin, C Beck, R Megraw, A Peever.
Further details can be found at: http://www.maestegrfc.com