Fixture

WRU LEAGUE DIVISION 1 EAST

Dowlais: 37

Caerleon: 15

A well fought bonus point win for Dowlais with a 37-15 win at home against Caerleon.

Dowlais showed confidence in the ball carrying and running that‘s been absent in recent games and that showed throughout the entire first half, a fact shown by an early try from Kristian Owen and the complete absence of tries for Caerleon in the first half.

It seemed that Dowlais had managed to avoid their usual trappings of conceding an excessive amount of penalties and not taking chances when presented with them.

Although defense was an important factor in winning, it can‘t be understated how much the offensive force in this game made Dowlais‘ job much easier than it typically is. Throughout the half, Dowlais scored two similarly excellent tries, the first from James Quirk and the second from Nathan Pritchard (with the second being converted by Steve James) and with Caerleon only having one penalty to show from the entire half, Dowlais entered the second half with a comfortable 17-3 lead.

Momentum carried similarly into the second half, with a second try from Kristian Owen getting Dowlais their bonus point. Although Caerleon soon countered with a converted try, because of the hard work put in the previous half, this wasn‘t as much of a daunting attack as it would have been in a lower scoring game.

Besides, after a lull in scoring of a few minutes Dowlais was back on the other side of the Caerleon tryline, with a penalty kick from Steve James, and two more tries courtesy of James Woods and Nathan Pritchard (the latter again converted by Steve James) put Dowlais even more comfortably ahead of the opposition to deliver them to a comfortable bonus point win (but not before Caerleon managed to sneak in a converted try right at the end).

Overall there really wasn‘t much at all to complain about this, as it turns out, a solid defense and stronger offense is all you need to win comfortably, and I hope to see the confidant attacking Dowlais showed this week to continue into the future.