Way back in late September Monmouth pipped Llandaff North at the post beating them 24-29, rounding off a stirring come-back with a last minute try after clearly losing the first half. Visiting supporters to the Sports Ground last Saturday were still bemoaning this fact but when their team turned round 20 points to nil ahead, they felt comfortable in the belief that lightning cannot strike twice in the same place. But how wrong they were. Despite Llandaff North playing from the off as if they had a score to settle, Monmouth seemed locked in the festive season suffering from a few portions too many of Christmas pudding. At three points down from a penalty with the wind, their task became harder as flanker Mike Griffiths got carried away earning a yellow card for ‘random stamping’ as the referee put it. Heads were down at this stage, or perhaps more accurately reported one should say they had never really been raised. Over the next thirty minutes missed tackles, poor positioning and being straightforwardly out-muscled saw an accumulation of three tries, one converted, to none against and quite a mountain to climb despite the benefit of the slope and the elements. But Coach Ian Seymour and Captain Kelly Lehmann laid down the challenge in the interval talks and Monmouth responded tremendously. Within a minute of the re-start, following a storming of the visitors’ line, scrum-half Gareth Morgan sniped through a fragmented defence to score untouched and giving wing Dave Brace an easy conversion. Now 7-20 the comeback had started well. Until, that is, substitute Julian Powell had a not unusual rush of blood to the head gaining the team another yellow card for illegal use of the boot. Fortunately Llandaff North also lost a player at the same time to balance things up. At least the referee was positive and even-handed throughout giving Monmouth a penalty at the same time for one of the visiting pack going over the top and killing the ball which Brace again kicked. The visitors were to offend soon again. From a quick penalty to Monmouth they tackled well inside ten yards and lost another player to the ‘sin-bin’ allowing Brace to add to his tally with another fine kick. At 13-20 Llandaff North knew they had to dig in, but in their fervour, if anything they became more ragged. The pressure upon them was intense from the, by now, rampaging home pack who were awarded a series of scrums near the visitors’ line and with only eight minutes to go centre Andrew Davies crossed for a try near the posts for Brace to draw the sides even by converting again. The Monmouth back row was on fire and Mike Griffiths led a charge down the field gaining immense yardage. Fly-half Huw Adams, keen to make am impression before leaving for a long touring holiday, set up several breaks and soon Monmouth had forced Llandaff North to offend again by killing the ball. A decision to kick the penalty with four minutes to go would probably have sealed the result but Mike Griffiths knew better and set off on another charging run which fortunately found wing Tom Baker itching to add to his try scoring tally. He crashed over to the delight of the home crowd with but a couple minutes of injury time to play and no-one minded that the difficult kick in the strong wind was beyond full back Matt King. This close 25-20 win keeps Monmouth in joint second place in the Asda league giving Lexus ( Cardiff) and Shire Conservatories considerable satisfaction with their generous sponsorship which is much appreciated by the Club. Next week takes the team to Tredegar versus Ironsides with the Druids will playing a Cup game away against Usk 2nds.
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