Monmouth Under 9’s beat Newbridge

Monmouth Under 9’s beat Newbridge convincingly 35 points to 10 on a very chilly Sunday when the players were very grateful for their Lidl sponsored training suits.

The game was delayed initially due to the frozen pitch but Monmouth didn’t need any time to warm up. After an initial ruck on the two-minute mark Peter Richards ran in a breakaway try from 20 metres. Mathew Goldsmith extended the Monmouth lead after a period of sustained mauling where Monmouth recovered possession from Newbridge. Monmouth worked hard not to surrender the ball to Newbridge with the rucking and mauling carried out by the whole team but particularly Rhys Carlton and Paris Thomas laying the foundations for what would eventually be a very impressive win.

Newbridge then scored twice through a clever switch move and a bullocking run from one of their many large players. However, Monmouth ended the half on a high when Tom Watkins out sprinted the defence to touch down.

The second half became very physical again with the whole team tackling and rucking very well, Hamish O’Hare working as hard as ever and invariably recovering the ball for Monmouth. What set Monmouth apart from Newbridge was their ability to pass the ball away from the ruck and free runners to score.

The second half saw Monmouth run in four unanswered tries.

Even though Newbridge were much physically bigger, they were not able to take advantage of what ball they did have due to the resilient Monmouth defence. Mathew Goldsmith opened the account for Monmouth in the second half taking his personal tally to two tries with Tom Watkins also bagging another try soon after. This took the score to 25 to 10 in Monmouth’s favour.

Not to be outdone, and to cap off an excellent personal performance, Mathew Goldsmith then took his tally to three tries with a typically direct run through the centre of the Newbridge defence. The excellent all round Monmouth performance was then finished off by Scott Davies with a jinking 20 metre solo effort beating three defenders to the try line.

What could have been a tricky away fixture turned out to be a fine exhibition of young rugby from Monmouth Under 9’s.