Defences were the order of the day here at Pandy Park on a wet and wild night in the Principality Premiership. At the end a 5-5 draw in the conditions seemed a fair result all round.
Llanelli played into the elements in the first half and from early on the forwards got the upper hand, particularly at scrum time. The early period saw the visitors pile on the pressure but the Keys defence looked solid. Then, after 11 minutes, a period of pressure close to the Keys line saw the Llanelli pack drive over the line for the games first score. As the announcer said, ‘try for Llanelli by “someone in a red shirt”, in the end the try was awarded to hooker Taylor Davies. The next period of the match saw a kicking game with both sides trying to set up good field position. But, whoever got the upper hand were ultimately unable to unlock the opposite sides defence.
At the half Llanelli led 5-0.
As if my magic, both the wind and rain suddenly stopped at the beginning of the second half. Llanelli, having weathered the storm in the first 40 mins must have been looking forward to have the elements with them, but it wasn’t to be. In fairness, the home side looked a different outfit and had red zone field position on a number of occasions but this time the Llanelli defence were up to the challenge. Like the first half, both sides tried to create good field position by tactical kicking as the game went into the final quarter. Llanelli then got on the wrong side of the referee and gave away a couple of penalties which saw Keys applying the pressure deep in their opponents 22m area. On 68mins their pressure paid dividends when centre Dylan Fidler scrambled over in the corner to level the scores.
In the final 10mins, Llanelli had the better of the exchanges and had a couple of long range penalty goal attempts but in the end both sides had to settle for 2pts apiece. Not the result either side wanted but they move on to the next challenge.
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