photo by Mark Harris

Cardiff Demons beat Newport Titans 32-28 in a thriller at Pill Harriers to top the Welsh Conference East.

Kirk Johnson ran in for an early Newport try. Ross Palmer converted. Demons equalised on 22 minutes after Ian Higgins made good ground to set up Jamie Iles who fed Neil Thomas who scored. Gareth Jones converted.

Wes Palmer almost gave Cardiff the lead but was held up over he crossed the line but Newport regained the advantage ten minutes later after a fine run from Ben Morris set up Tyrone Mahoney to score under the sticks. Palmer converted.

Cardiff thought they’d got back into the game just before half time but Higgins’ pass to Gareth Holtham was forward.

However they leveled things up on 54 minutes when Lewis Francis fed Wes Palmer who stormed over. Jones converted and five minutes later, rather than taking the easy way out and go for a kickable penalty, he ran it in under the sticks and converted again to put Cardiff into the lead for the first time.

Iles went over in the corner five minutes later to add to Cardiff’s lead but Newport responded straight away through a Martin Cawley try.

Chris Wilkins ran in another try back for Newport on 69 minutes with Mark Wheeler following suit and Palmer converting both to give Newport the lead again.

But John Darcy scored in the corner for Cardiff with Jones kicking to level the scores at 28-28 with a minute to go and from the next and final set of the game, Jones kicked from the fifth tackle and debutante Dean Gretch pushed the ball down for John Trick to run home.

article by Ian Golden
1 July 2006