A trip last Saturday to the metropolis of Cardiff on the nicest day this winter for a game of rugby promised a lot but despite the sunshine and dry conditions and matching Llandaff in many respects, it was a pity from a Monmouth point of view about the result. To lose 3-36 was dispiriting and almost unbelievable. With the referee’s promise in his pre-match talk that he would not be heard still ringing in the players’ ears, the first ten minutes was punctuated by nothing other than his whistle and worse was to come. True Monmouth were on fire at the beginning but despite being the first to score through a Matt King penalty after earlier having moved right up field in a flowing move started by Gareth Morgan, carried on by Tom Baker and supported by centre Dave Brace marred only by an unthinking and unnecessary foot out of place which caused the prospect of a penalty to be reversed, Dave Brace whilst defending the deep counter-attack was sin-binned for an allegedly high tackle on the shortest man on the field which seemed to all but the referee to be relatively innocuous and more a punishment for earlier transgressions. And punishment it certainly was for Llandaff exploited their one man advantage with style, scoring three tries in the space of ten minutes. True Monmouth were not helping themselves because any good ball they had they seemed to kick it away and the strong running Llandaff backs knew how to exploit the gaps. 17-3 down at half-time was a challenge but at least in the second half they would have the advantage of the considerable slope and despite the tries had given a stirring account of themselves in most positions and in particular from Monmouth’s smallest man playing hooker, aptly nicknamed ‘Babby’ but an excellent forager. For a good ten minutes Monmouth gave as good as they got pressurising their opponents well with only a strong cross wind taking another King penalty wide. And then lightning struck for the second time when a Llandaff player benefited from the referee being unsighted and despite a substantial knock-on was allowed to score almost unchallenged. Although they missed the conversion, Lady Luck was not on the side of Monmouth and scrum-half Morgan who had been playing well had to leave the field injured. Monmouth re-organised and began to fall prey again to deep attacking runs from Llandaff and this time their fly-half and full-back. Brace took an unholy knock in the ribs but manfully played on as all the substitutes had been used by then. Monmouth kept trying and at times played the game they wanted, but despite a succession of rucks which put them in reach of scoring, failure to retain the ball at a crucial moment saw Llandaff kick the ball 65 yards to touch to relieve the pressure on themselves. Heads were starting to fall amongst the visitors despite the referee seeming now to make up for failing to penalise earlier repeated offside in the backs but home ‘head-shots’ now seemed permissible much to the annoyance of the visiting spectators. Monmouth pressed one more time but this time a poor throw in the line-out saw play taken almost the full length of the field for a 6 th try and an uncompromising 36-3 final result. Individuals played with vigour and bravery for Monmouth but there was little obvious cohesion and far too many missed tackles, static moves, handling errors and discipline transgressions. Breaks for Internationals never did much for Monmouth’s game and so it proved again this time and sadly there is another disrupted weekends in the offing when Wales play Italy. Still the welcome will be warm in the Club-house and a win may restore Monmouth’s desire to do likewise.
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