A win on the road for the Blue & Blacks
On a cold windy afternoon Cardiff RFC travelled up to North Wales to play RGC in the latest round of the Indigo Premiership cup. There was barely any time for a conversation at the start of the match as RGC took hold of the opening few minutes, eventually breaching the Cardiff defence with an early try by Keiron Dixon to take the lead, but Dion Jones missed the conversion.
A frantic next ten minutes saw the Cardiff defence being severely challenged but the Blue and Blacks held strong. An injury to George Gasson saw the first change of the day, and we wish him a speedy recovery. Shortly after this Cardiff were penalised for an infringement in the ruck – Jones’ kicked through the posts with the ball almost flying up to the Orme.
Following this a change in belief from the players saw Cardiff dominate the next 10 minutes. Plenty of pick and drive action saw the visitors camped inside the RGC 22, eventually seeing Ben Murphy power through the committed RGC defence to make the score 8-5 to the home side taking us into half time.
In the second half, and playing with the wind, Cardiff were spurred on by their end of half dominance and carried on taking the game to RGC. A missed penalty by Jack Maynard didn’t matter as a spirited attacking move just afterwards saw Sam Moore slide over in the corner, with Maynard adding the extras to make the score 8- 12 to Cardiff, giving them the lead for the first time.
Late on in the second half, a comeback by RGC saw them take control, but the Cardiff pack maintained dominance in the set pieces and were able to use this to keep the home side from scoring. A penalty against RGC for holding on saw Beetham line up a long range penalty effort, near halfway. Many of the supporters who had made the long journey could not watch, but Beetham calmly stepped up and kicked the ball between the posts extending the lead to 8-15.
Going into the final few minutes RGC set up a relentless barrage of attacks but the Cardiff defence ensured RGC would be held up and turned over on several occasions. The home attacks kept coming and several discipline issues saw both Beetham and Anstey sent to the sin bin. Despite playing with 13 men, for the last few minutes Cardiff held on to claim an important victory.
Finally a special thanks to the handful of Cardiff supporters who made the long trip up north, but had a smashing time.
Post Match Interviews
Theo Cabango
Rory Harries
Jacob Beetham
Ioan Evans
Tom Hoppe
