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Two facile back-to-back victories in four days over near neighbours Swansea Valley Miners confirmed Aberavon Fighting Irish as main challengers to the unbeaten Bridgend Blue Bulls in this year’s Welsh rugby league conference.
Scoring 136 points in the process - including a remarkable 52 from stand off Liam Gadd – the Fighting Irish completely overwhelmed a hapless Miners’ outfit, playing some of their best rugby of the 2004 campaign.
Aberavon’s original home fixture against the lowly Swansea Valley Side had been postponed due to the tragic and untimely death of Scott McCrorie, who had worn the Fighting Irish colours with distinction. By a quirk of the fixture re-scheduling process these two sides were pitted against each other twice within a few days, and with Swansea only able to call on the services of a limited squad, they were never going to pose a threat for an experienced Aberavon side, considered by many as live contenders of the national crown, and with a burgeoning squad of over 40 players – all capable of holding their own in most other conference sides.
Darren Ryan and the rampaging Ceri Thomas opened with tries for the home side, one of which was converted by Scully, who went on to score a brace of tries and a further eight conversions for a personal haul of 26 points. Simon Bevan, playing at dummy half and looking Swansea’s best player replied for the visitors to make the score 20 – 4 at the interval.
They did manage to cross the Aberavon line on two further occasions with tries by winger Dylan Griffiths and prop forward Andy Lustig, with Bevan converting one, but when in the ascendancy the Fighting Irish throw the ball around with aplomb in attack, and their well organised ‘in your face’ defence can frustrate even the best sides.
Tries at regular intervals from Liam Gadd (2), Ceri Thomas, Kyle Jenkins (2) and Gary Vaughan sealed the Aberavon victory and with Scully’s reliable boot adding the extras to all but one of these, the game was soon out of reach for the visitors, who, to their credit continued to battle up to the wire.
The Fighting Irish had achieved their victory playing with some style, but there was a degree of trepidation in the Aberavon camp with a journey to Ystalyfera in the Swansea Valley on the horizon, only four days later, and with coach Chris O’Callaghan only too aware that he would have a severely depleted squad at his disposal due to Great Britain Students commitments (Jason Massey, Dean Scully) holidays (Richard Morris, Paul Morgan Hubert Richards) wedding (Andy Llewellyn, Mark Thomas) and injury (Darren Ryan, Geraint Davies, Anthony Thomas, Matthew Rowlands, Chris Lamb, Ricky Price and Scot O’Kelly).
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With eight players yet to reach 20 years of age, including Mark Burke, Lee Imperator, Kyle Jenkins, James Jones and Richard Lewis, the Fighting Irish looked an inexperienced outfit as they took to the field and a major upset looked a distinct possibility. But within 10 minutes of the start, a clever drop goal by Dan Hawkins to open the scoring, and tries by his brother David and Ceri Thomas, one converted by Liam Gadd had taken the scores to 11 – 0 in favour of the visitors, and any notion of an upset had been dispelled.
At the heart of the Aberavon effort was a virtuoso performance by young stand off Liam Gadd. Not only did his five tries and near faultless 12 conversions give him a Conference record 44 points but some of his running and passing was of the very highest order. His ability to put teammates into space and his silky running style mesmerised the Swansea defence and time and time again left would be tacklers stranded like startled rabbits in a car’s headlights. He deservedly collected the Parkhouse Recruitment Man of the Match Award and on this performance could prove to be one of Aberavon Rugby Union Club’s best signings for years, when he pulls on the famous blood and black shirt come September.
Gadd’s performance had coach O’Callaghan purring with delight and earned the young Cwmafon product an immediate call up to the Welsh squad preparing for the ‘A’ fixture with Scotland on July 3rd. O’Callaghan said:
“I have been tracking Liam’s performances for a few years and I firmly believe that the Welsh Rugby League Conference is an excellent testing ground for skills, courage, tackling and character. Today he passed all with flying colours and he has a big future in both codes. He was outstanding in everything that he did and I have high hopes for his future”.
Alongside Gadd, the Hawkins brothers performed with their usual spirited determination, and props Greg Dix and Andrew Suter constantly asked questions of the creaking home defence. Dix has surprised many with his smooth transition to rugby league, and his tackle count regularly highlights him as one of the Fighting Irish best performers. In this game too he was immense – tackling with gusto and running his weight at every opportunity. Kyle Jenkins and James Jones continue to improve, and centre Matthew Hare marked his debut with a polished performance that saw him have a hand in three tries, and rock solid in defence.
For the records, the remaining Aberavon tries were scored by hat trick heroes Ceri Thomas and David Hawkins and a further touchdown by powerful wing Richard Lewis, who tormented the Miners with his high stepping running style every time he had the ball in hand.
Article by John O'Callaghan
21 Jun 2004
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