Rugby Union: Llandudno continue to struggle

Oct 20 2011

Pwllheli RFC 76  Llandudno RFC 11

PLAYER availability yet again came to haunt Llandudno as they crashed to a 76-11 defeat at the hands of Pwllheli in Division One North.

The defeat leaves winless Tudno bottom of the standings, and it doesn’t look like getting any easier as the Maesdu Road outfit entertain high flying local rivals Nant Conwy next Saturday.

As it was the visitors started strongly and were committed in the loose and the line outs.
But it was Pwllheli who were able to make use of their extra man when left wing Robin Hughes Jones was put into space to score and Matt Duggan converting.

Llandudno dug deep and took the game to Pwllheli, and the numbers were evened up just before the half hour mark when Duggan was shown a red card for retaliating to a dangerous tackle.

This spurred Llandudno on and they were awarded the penalty which Dave Davies duly slotted.

The sending off unnerved Pwllheli and three minutes later Davies slotted another kick to reduce the deficit to one point.

Pwllheli settled but now with 14 players each it became a fairer contest, but still it was the home side who took the game forward and they extended their lead on 34 minutes with a second try from Robin Hughes Jones.

Three minutes later flanker Tom Parry touched down at the end of a 20 metre rolling maul with Nick Butterworth adding the conversion.
And on the stroke of half time Pwllheli’s right wing Emyr Jones scored after a strong run to secure the bonus point try and give the home side a 24-6 lead at the interval.

And it got even worse for Tudno after the break as Pwll full-back Owain Williams went over for a quick fire brace of tries, Butterworth again converting both.

Williams added a third try shortly after following a superb backline move, and Butterworth was again on target to improve the score.

A further three tries followed in quick succession with Hughes Jones reaching his hat-trick, while Emyr Jones added two more to complete his hat-trick, Butterworth adding one conversion.

Despite being more than 50 points down, Llandudno continued to fight and scored a well earned try by Ed Weston.

However, it was Pwllheli who had the last laugh and responded with the final score as Robin Hughes Jones crossed for a further two tries, Butterworth converting one and Owain Williams the other.