WRU National Bowl Third Round - Monmouth 61 Penybanc 12

A WEEK free of league action saw Monmouth RFC’s First XV take on Penybanc on Monmouth Sportsground and record yet another emphatic 61-12 win to progress through to Round Four of the WRU National Bowl competition.

The match against Penybanc, who play in Division 3B of the Welsh National league, is understood to be the first time the two sides have ever met.

The score did not do justice to the performance and effort displayed by the visitors.

The Monmouth team, who are on an impressive run of form, have developed a clinical edge and are showing the ability to score from all areas of the field.

All players have brought selection and rotation process to the squad and this game typically proved to be a 22 man squad effort with significant impact being made off the bench.

Penybanc were subjected to a Monmouth team who played with purpose and pace and whose passing and offload game was found difficult to contain by the visitors.

Monmouth, with the sun at their backs, were forced to defend for the first 10 minutes of the game, with Penybanc dominating both possession and territory.

The early pressure resulted in Monmouth conceding a penalty kick at goal, which luckily for Monmouth proved unsuccessful. An off-the-ball skirmish by both packs, dealt with firmly by the referee, appeared to firm up the Monmouth side, who then took control.

A length-of-field move in the 13th minute, resulted in a try for second row Aaron Cox, the first of nine tries, seven of which were converted.

Try scorers for Monmouth being Aaron Cox, Will Smith, Rhys Davies, Amosa Nove, Dai Hellard, Scott Giles, Tom Hawkins, Dan White and Zen Szwagrzac. Five conversions came from Paul Emanuelli and two from Sam Parsons.

The common feature of all tries being the speed of attack, passing and an offload game, which the Penybanc defence found difficult to deal with.

With a half-time score of 35-0, it was of great credit to Penybanc that they came out firing at the start of the second half, which resulted in two deserved tries, one converted.

However Monmouth were able to call for impact off the bench and went on to regain control and score a further four tries, the last of which saw the Monmouth pack secure scrum possession in their own 22m and half back Dan White released centre and man-of-the-match Morgan Paley, who then linked with full back Amosa Nova.

Amosa made a determined 50m run, beating several players before he was tackled 10m short of the opposition try line. However he was able to deliver an outrageous reverse pass offload which found prop forward Zen Szwagrzac in support to score under the post, this final skill by Nove leaving both the crowd and Penybanc defence with mouths wide open.

Concern for Monmouth’s coaching team will most certainly be the poor level of discipline.

Monmouth were forced to play most of the game with 14 men due to a series of yellow cards.

The team will be reminded that they will require all 15 players for the full duration if they are to be successful against league leaders Newport High School Old Boys at home next Saturday. Kick off is at 2.30pm.

Photos courtesy of Steve Mitchell