Former winners make Plate progress

ONE of the most eagerly awaited first-round Swalec Plate ties took place in the Towy Valley, where division three west's Llandeilo took on in-form Ammanford, who had put four successive division one west wins together to lift themselves up to fourth spot.

And two-time Plate champions Ammanford won 47-10.

"It's quite a while since we played in Llandeilo, a ground where we hadn't experienced much success," said Ammanford secretary Lyn Roberts.

"We've started on our Plate journey once more and even though failing to finish off three first-half scoring opportunities and missing a couple more in the second, we won comfortably.

"We rested several players, with two ex-youth products making big impressions. Scrum-half Gareth Rees had a good debut, with blindside Jake Baker also playing well."

Scored

Ammanford wings Gary Stephens and Dafydd Pritchard both scored tries, converted by fly-half Richard Morris.

Although Ammanford led 14-0 inside the opening ten minutes, Llandeilo made the most of a Jake Simms sin-binning, with Luke Rees claiming a try, converted by Kelvin Davies, to cut Ammanford's half-time advantage to 14-7.

Although Llandeilo claimed an early second-half penalty, Ammanford went on to produce five more tries.

There was a touchdown by centre Chris Moore, plus two more tries from hat-trick hero Pritchard. Opposite wing Stephens also blitzed into the try zone once more.

Prop Rob Knight, who burrowed in for Ammanford's last try.

The remaining eight points were claimed by Richard Morris via four conversions.

Amman United beat division three west rivals Pontarddulais 23-11 at Amman Park seven days previously, but that was reversed when Bont celebrated a 19-12 Plate success over United.

Promotion

Amman got to the quarter-final stages last season, but after this season's exit team manager Ross Smith said: "In a way the exit could well aid our league promotion chances."

It was 7-7 at the halfway stage, with Amman awarded a first-half penalty try, converted by fly-half Adrian Thomas.

In the second half one more Amman try was scored, with substitute Stewart Herbert spotting the opportunity to take a quick tap-penalty before the ball zipped wide to try-scoring full-back Gavin Madge.

Another local derby that saw a sizeable crowd was the Swalec Bowl round two clash between unbeaten division five south west Penybanc and injury-hit four west mid-table Betws.

Penybanc found themselves down to 12 men in an eventful first half, while Betws failed to finish with a full XV at the end of a 27-6 defeat, with Banc running in four tries.

The first half was very even, with Betws fly-half Nick White putting his side 3-0 ahead via a penalty.

However, Banc replied with a sweeping attacking move that saw possession spread across the field to full-back Wayne Williams. His try converted by fly-half Matthew Lloyd.

White clawed another three points back for Betws before Banc lost a prop, second row and influential centre Matthew Brayley to the sin bin.

However, Betws failed to claim any points.

Once back to their full complement, Banc's Lloyd stroked over another penalty to extend the home lead to 10-6 at half-time.

There was only one team in it during the second half, with Banc wing Daniel Roberts going in for a try almost from the kick-off. Lloyd converted before Banc's best touchdown of the game, with Williams claiming his second try.

Lloyd left proceedings with a head wound, so Williams slotted into the fly-half berth and went on to instigate Banc's fourth try, which was finished off by flyer Gary Jones.

Undefeated division four West leaders Tycroes had beaten Neyland 38-12 in September and on this occasion they eased to a 55-19 home win.

"It was a mirror image of our performance at Neyland earlier in the season, where we only started to play in the second half," said Tycroes team manager Craig Phillips.

"We didn't put our full-strength team out because we wanted to rest several key players and keep them fresh for our visit to Betws next weekend."

Top gear

Tycroes were in top gear from the off, with flanker John Ogden and scrum-half Simon Cooper bagging tries inside the opening dozen minutes, with fly-half Dean Bromham converting both.

Tycroes allowed Neyland to claim a dozen points. However, Bromham landed a penalty to extend his side's half-time lead to 17-12.

Tycroes blitzed in six second-half tries, with Neyland only able to tick off an interception try of their own in reply.

Adding their names onto the Tycroes try sheet were centre Gareth Jones (2), captain Steve Roach, wing Scott Bowen, Rob Petryschen and Ogden. Bromham converted four more, enabling Tycroes to ease into round three.

Although losing 38-32, division six west outfit Pantyffynnon were rightly proud of their efforts against visiting Fishguard, a side two divisions above them.

"They scored, we scored, they scored, we scored. It was like that throughout," said team manager Julian Davies, who made his return at prop after a recent injury absence.

"We gave an outstanding account of ourselves, we could have won it and were held up on the line right at the end."

Tries

There were five Panty tries, four shared between blindside flanker Craig Daniels, scrum-half Matthew James, openside Stuart Sutherland and hooker Nick James, who also registered five points with his boot.

However, the best try of the game was scored by Panty wing Luke Masters, who chipped over the Seagulls defence and scooped up before diving into the try zone.

Panty thoughts are already focusing on next weekend's local derby at Blaenau. Davies added: "In our current form, our boys are really relishing our big derby date at Blaenau next weekend."

New Dock Stars were awarded a walkover against Penygroes.

Team manager Derrick McAndrew said: "As a result of a wedding and lots of injuries we couldn't raise a side."