Fixture

After the ignominy of shipping 60 points last week in the Cup at Burry Port Birchgrove provided the perfect response with an 11 Try win over visiting Pontycymmer at Parc Bedw today.

The game started fairly evenly with the usual toing and froing between the respective twenty two lines until one sortie into the visiting territory saw busy scrum half Leigh Di’iulio burst out of a forward melee, ball safely to hand to touch down for the first try easily converted by Nick Fisher 7 – 0.

Ponty were quick to try and counter and stormed in to the attack pegging the home side in their own twenty two. A loose ball though fell to speedy wing Lee Harris and with the majority of the visiting side committed to the attack, once Harris had cheekily side stepped two players on his own 22 he covered the vast unprotected expanse of Parc Bedw with only the touch line for company to register yet another “worldy”. Fisher again added the extras 14 – 0.

Ponty to their credit once again tried hard to hit back and their rugged No. 9 was doing all in his power to drive the attack forward. A neat passage of play almost saw them pinch one try back but when the eagle eyed touch judge cancelled out the effort the referee called play back for what looked like a pretty innocuous high tackle. The No 9 took the easy option of slotting over the points from the resultant penalty 14 - 3 and our tighthead Tim Nkurunziza found himself off for a 10 minute rest.

Despite the reduced numbers Birch were now putting some nice attacking patterns together and a sweeping move involving Leigh Di’iulio, Lee Harris, Luke Beynon and Adam Percival’s sleight of hand twice put wing Rob John in for try No 3 well converted by Fisher  21 – 3.

Heading towards half time it looked likely that the bonus try was on as a succession of long raking kicks from Fisher and Liam Garland set up line out attacking platforms and with Scott Beard at his imperious best ably supported by Tom Downing on the end of the accurate Connor Gallivan throw ins Birch were well on top. Livewire Prop Liam Richards nearly made the line with a trademark burst but some “handbags “ off the ball brought the half to an un tidy end with the referee digging for his cards again, one from either side.

The second half was quickly off with a bang though as evergreen Jamie Rees made hard yards and a smother tackle by Adam Percival, preventing his victim going to ground, gave Birch another attacking opportunity. Luke Beynon who was having a solid game out of position at outside centre found himself in receipt of a swift pass and must have thought the Red Sea had opened up in front of him as he romped over for the bonus try with Fisher again on target. 28 -3.

Although the home team was well in command, the game was now to take a somewhat unfortunate turn as Pontycymmer suffered a series of injuries and with only a limited bench found themselves at various stages of the game ranging from 14 to a ludicrous 11 men on the field. But to their interminable credit at no time did they give up the ghost and the men left to carry the can ran themselves  in to the ground in a sterling effort to stem what was to turn in to an inevitable rout.

With the home pack now dominant,  the line out firing on all cylinders and the fleet footed backs hungry to exploit the extra space being afforded them it was to turn in to one way traffic as further tries were chalked up by Luke Beynon , a further two for   Lee Harris, one for Captain Adam Percival and forwards Liam Richards and Matt Harries weighing in for good measure. Nick Fisher continued to compound the misery with a textbook lesson in place kicking bringing him a creditable total of 9 conversions, one more hitting a post and only one failure. Final Score 73 – 3.

A good win and well deserved. The old adage “you can only play what is in front of you” was openly prevalent in the Club House afterwards and this of course is very true. No one likes to see a depleted side suffer the embarrassment of a heavy defeat but both sides can take credit from today in that the home side were playing some very attractive and effective rugby against a full side early on scoring three quality tries well before the depletions. The visitors pluck and courage in adversity was outstanding.