Cardiff Report

Ebbw fell to what was a sixth straight defeat in a row following their 32-7 loss to Cardiff on Friday night. It wasn’t all the scoreline seemed, with the Steelmen putting in a hell of a shift for an hour, before collapsing under heavy pressure and a flurry of cards.

It was Ebbw who got the scoring underway when a rolling maul shunted its way over, Ryan Evans adding the extras to give the visitors a 7-0 lead. Evans then missed a chance to make it 10-0 following some more Ebbw pressure. 

Despite mixed conditions and a late Friday night kick-off the crowd was in good spirits, with shouts of ‘Ebbw’ and ‘Cardiff’ both appearing throughout the night, it was just the former that rung loudest and longest, sadly the last laugh fell with those in Blue and Black. 

Ebbw’s Jordan Thomas was sin binned for a deliberate knock-on right before half time and the sides went in Ebbw winning 7-3.

Jon Evans saw yellow on a debut that had many a positive sign from the former Pro12 winning scrum half and after another Jack Maynard penalty, Iestyn Harris crossed the whitewash to send the host into the lead for the first time.

More yellows would come for Evans and Luke Garrett, as would tries for Cardiff. Ioan Evans, Jacob Beetham and a penalty try garnering up a bonus point. Dan Fish the conductor as the rugby orchestra played.

Despite the scoreline Greg Woods remains positive that Ebbw can turn it around and get some positive results in the remaining 2 games of the cup.

“I was extremely pleased with the intensity we brought, and we rattled them for 60 minutes. Then the sheer pressure leads to yellow cards, high tackles and you won’t win games with four yellows. It’s an Achilles heel that we need to sort out, but the quality of Dan Fish came on and accelerated the score, but I don’t think that score reflects the game,” said Woods.

“The scrum struggled, but the lineout and maul were superb, and we really took it too them. I was really pleased with Mikhail Blake and Luke when they came on and built up the scrum, but we lost Corey Talbot again tonight, so we’ll need to assess the damage on him and then we go again.

“We’ll target every game, it was a lot better performance than at Sardis Road, we’ve still got plenty to work on, but parts of tonight we can build on.”

Remember that RGC is a 7:15pm kick-off next Friday, and we hope to see you all there! #FEELTHESTEEL

Video highlights here https://youtu.be/r7MvEHY_E3c