Local derby win for Ponty Youth

On Saturday 18^th October, Pontypridd Youth hosted neighbours Glyncoch in a hastily re-arranged fixture after original opponents Bonymaen were forced to cancel. 

Ponty Youth were facing a mini injury crisis, and were without eight first team regulars, six of which were in the forwards, so were forced to select a very inexperienced pack. 

Ponty started brightly, but poor decision making resulted in them spurning three early chances for penalty kicks at goal, a decision they would come to rue later in the half. Instead they went searching for a try, but poor ball retention amongst the new look pack and a lack of urgency at the ruck, led to all the early pressure only yielding 3 points from a Simms penalty. 

Glyncoch soon settled and started to play the better rugby, equalising with a penalty from their impressive outside half, and then adding a well deserved try after some powerful drives from their forwards. The try was  converted taking Glyncoch in to a well deserved 3 -10 lead.

Ponty were stung by this and hit back with a further Simms penalty to take the half time score to Pontypridd 6 Glyncoch 10. 

A silly penalty from Ponty at the start of the second half gave Glyncoch the chance to open the scoring and their outside half expertly converted the kick from long range to stretch their lead to 6 - 13. 

Finally Ponty started to hit some form, and with substitute flanker Alun Thomas  making the hard yards, Ponty were finally able to get on top up front. With the forwards now providing quality ball, Ponty fly-half Lewis Smith started to dominate the game and made some telling breaks to firstly put Simms in for Ponty's first try, and then Casey Pitman for Ponty's second, and although both tries went unconverted, Ponty had now retaken the lead. 

Frustrations now crept into the Glyncoch play and after a number of incidents amongst the forwards, the referee lost patience and yellow carded a Glyncoch flanker for dangerous play.

Ponty took full advantage setting up a lineout deep in the Glyncoch half, and when the Ponty drive was halted on the line, the ball was quickly recycled to allow centre Luke Glavin to power over for another unconverted try to make the final score Pontypridd Youth 21 Glyncoch 13. 

Pontypridd man of the match was outside half and captain Lewis Smith.