Llanelli impress with clinical performance
A COOL, professional performance saw six-try Llanelli win Friday night's Principality Premiership game at Rodney Parade with ease.
Llanelli started well and took a sixth-minute lead with a Jordan Williams penalty.
Though Llanelli had most of the early play they could not break the home defence, though they still looked comfortable.
Williams was wide with a long shot at goal and Newport's Tom Hancock also fired wide soon afterwards.
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A penalty against debutant lock Jake Ball, the Scarlets' new 21-year-old signing from Australia, saw Hancock kick a fine goal after 27 minutes to level the scores.
The game did not really come to life, but Newport lost two forwards to yellow cards and Llanelli gained a penalty try that Williams converted.
Loose play by Newport saw Llanelli run the ball out of defence and wing Kristian Phillips raced over for Williams to convert.
A huge punch-up soon followed, and Shaun Hopkins was yellow-carded by referee Rhys Thomas, with Hancock dropping a goal for Newport after the incident.
Newport came back into it but Llanelli led 17-6 at the interval.
Seconds into the second half centre Nic Reynolds scored a try when Newport dropped the ball. Williams added the conversion.
Within three minutes Llanelli added another as Reynolds sent Phillips in for Williams to convert.
A Williams penalty after 50 minutes made it 6-34 before a huge punch-up developed and Newport skipper David Pattison was red-carded.
Incredibly, between the blasts on the whistle Newport kept up the attacks as Llanelli sat back in defence.
Both sides rang the changes and referee Thomas came in for much booing as he continued lecturing the home side.
Llanelli came out of defence for replacement Justin Jones to score the visitors' fifth try, and a try by Craig Price ended it, with replacement Diggy Bird converting.
Comments
by TonduTurk
Wednesday, September 12 2012, 9:38AM
“I commented on Saturdays report that the 5th try scorer was Justin JAMES not Jones (who's played over 100 times for Llanelli, and there is no Justin Jones playing for Llanelli) and you have reproduced this report for the Llanelli Star with the same error.
Very poor journalism.”