This eagerly awaited fixture following last year's double defeat at the hands of our opposition started some three quarters of an hour late, but despite the hangining around pre-match, the boys seemed keen and looked up for the game. Early doors were dominated by Gowerton and with plenty of possession in damp conditions we looked dangerous with ball in hand. On 7 minutes, centre and ex-Loughor player Gregor Devine got his first of the day with a well worked try in the corner. The difficult conversion was missed by No. 10 Alex Hughes. Loughor's forwards were causing us problems at times and when they kept the ball tight made it difficult, but all credit to our players we tackled superbly and our defence held firm. On the occasions the ball was spun out to the Loughor backs there wasn't any spark to cause our backs much trouble and the majority of moves resulted in very little. On 21 mins, with the ball on their own line, a kick from their outside half got charged down by hooker Tomas Davies, the ball landed over the line and second row Ollie Freeman pounced on the loose ball to claim the try. The conversion by Alex Hughes hit the upright and stayed out, 0-10. On 27 minutes, we crossed for our third try of the game when flanker Joe Richards picked up from a scrum and dived over unopposed for a good try. Frustratingly, Alex Hughes then managed to hit the other upright with the conversion, 0-15 . Loughor got straight back into it and looked to score just before the break. A number of infringements by Gowerton saw Ollie Freeman finally shown a yellow card and spend 10 minutes on the sidelines. However we kept Loughor out for the remainer of the half to lead 0-15.
The second half saw us against a stiff breeze from one corner to the other. The drizzle kept coming down making handling more difficult. The half started fairly evently with posession and territory shared by both teams and a stalemate occured until 10 minutes from the end of the game when it was Loughor's turn to see yellow after several penalties against them. With an easy three points available, Alex Hughes made not mistake this time and slotted it over to take the score to 0-18. Credit to Loughor they didn't throw in the towel and used the wind to their advantage to pin us deep in our own 22m area. And with 5 minutes to go to full time, they squeezed over for a forward oriented try, the coversion was missed, 5-18. A couple of minutes later a loose defensive lick from the base of a ruck fell into the arms of fullback Steff Richards who jinked his way through a couple of tackles only to be brought down a meter short but popped the ball back to Gregor Devine who dived over the line for his second of the match. Alex had now found his kicking boots and converted a very good kick to make it 5-25. To cap off a fine performance Gregor took the ball deep in our own half and ran straight back at them, brushing away several tackles to then break through and outpace the Loughor defence. With a Chris Ashton style 'dive and salute' crossed over for his hat trick and the teams's fith try. With the conversion by Alex successful once more, the referee blew for full time with Gowerton winning 5-32. A great team performance throughout with an excellent defence and some neat attacing moves to boot. Always nice to get one over on our near rivals and a nice Xmas present from the boys to the coaches!!! Roll on the new year with the Quarter Final of the Ospreys cup up next!
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