Monmouth RFC - Monmouth Rugby Blitz

Monmouth RFC's home Cup game against Blaenavon Forgeside on Saturday was always going to present a major challenge for their 6^th Division newcomer visitors. But when several members of their team jibbed at playing against a team two leagues above them, they were brave in their resolve to honour the fixture even though they had a bare 15 players and no recognisable front row.

As one of Monmouth's strengths is the solidity of their scrum, one wondered how big a drawback this might represent, but within minutes it was clear that the traffic was to be largely one-way.

75 minutes later when the referee brought an early end to proceedings, Monmouth had blitzed their visitors with 16 largely well delivered tries with 12 of those being converted by right wing Dave Brace. The 104-0 result was a record as far as anyone knows as was the 39 individual points from the boot of Brace supplemented by his hat-trick of tries.

To Monmouth's credit they largely kept their shape throughout which can be difficult in such circumstances as individuals may be tempted to go it alone but they were able to consistently execute many of their training pitch set moves. But to Forgeside's credit, too, they stuck at their task even when injury reduced them to 13 players in the second half and only at the very end did their frustration start to show with some verbals from individuals.

Having missed a penalty at the outset, Monmouth knuckled down and impressed a good crowd on a sunny afternoon with slick handling, good lines of running and almost invariably confidence in backing their pace.

Scrum half Gareth Morgan opened the scoring in the tenth minute with Brace adding the first of his 12 conversions followed by hooker Andrew Hunter, flankers  Stacey Edwards and then Tom Homer, and then yet another forward, prop Paul Stockley bringing 31 points in as many minutes.

The backs having missed a few opportunities thanks to good last ditch tackling by Blaenavon now began to extend themselves with an excellent bout of inter-passing seeing centre Chris Reed going over some 60 yards from when he first started the move, closely followed by tries from full back Layne and centre Andrew Davies.

Half time and the first 50 points brought a rest for all involved but Davies was again to show his eagerness with his second try at the end of the first completed move after the interval.

He showed his experience again with a well timed pass to substitute wing Adam Roberts for the next but then Captain John Powell looking all set to crash through two defenders was called back for using his fore-arm to break through their tackle.

Keeping up the same point a minute pace Brace now showed a clean pair of heels  to take the score to 69-0 followed by 2^nd row Will Copley almost instantly charging down the middle for another 7-pointer.

The backs decided the rest of the scoring was now theirs with Brace scoring again and then feeding Layne for another. Fly-half Rhys Ricketts rounded off a very good personal game in which he revelled in the extra space made available to him with the reduced visitor numbers in defence, taking Monmouth past the magic century for Brace to add the conversion and for the referee, who controlled the game very sensitively, to blow the final whistle on the 104-0 win.

Next week will be tougher as Monmouth visit Machen for their next Swalec League challenge but here's hoping that this run-out will have boosted their players'  confidence in their abilities whilst not encouraging any complacency.