Fixture

Dowlais Vs Mold 28/10/2023 Match Report

Score:

Dowlais: 31

Mold: 6

Another excellent victory for Dowlais this week, in the cup at home against Mold.

Dowlais were up against some very distant opponents in their first real cup match of the season, and with no prior track record or experience against their Northern visitors to look back on, no one quite knew what to expect as the boys stepped onto the pitch with some very showery weather on the horizon.

But much like their previous bout last week against Senghenydd, despite the very one-sided manner that the score eventually ended up in, the first chunk of the game started off quite unassumingly.

Much like that last game, the visitors would get the first points on the board, albeit in the much more manageable form of a penalty instead of a try.

But following this early strike, most of the rest of the first half stayed quite evenly matched. Both sides had the upper hand in places – with Mold looking particularly dangerous in the backs and on the wings, while Dowlais mostly dominated up front and in the breakdowns – but overall they came out about equal for the majority of the first forty minutes.

Because of this, it wouldn’t be until around twenty of those minutes had passed that the next points would arrive on the board, this time in Dowlais’ favour, with a converted try driven over the line by the forwards.

With Dowlais having established a slight 7-3 lead, one would perhaps expect that things would start to pick up for the remainder of the half, but that wouldn’t end up happening quite yet. For the moment, and for the rest of the first forty minutes, both sides continued to trade blows without much in terms of significant payoff for either party.

Both sides managed to climb a few notches higher on the score board, with each of them managing to kick one more penalty each, but of course, the two of them would more or less end up cancelling out any sort of lead that either side could have gained.

After a few more minutes of back-and-forth, those two kicks would eventually end the first half off at a very low score of only 10-6.

As the curtain was lifted on the second half, it did so with a strong feeling that it was still anyone’s game. Although Dowlais were leading and had been for a significant chunk of time, the measly three-point buffer between them and the visitors was one that could easily be shattered at any moment.

As such, Dowlais stepped back onto the pitch for the second half (to yet more rain) with a determination to extend that lead beyond their opponents’ reach and truly take charge of the game.

In another similar beat to last week’s match, over the course of the second forty minutes, they would more than manage to do that.

While a decent chunk of the half lingered in the same back-and-forth that so much of the game had already occupied up until that point, that would all change with Dowlais’ second try of the game, touched down by Kyle Prosser and converted by Sion Martin.

Not only did this breakthrough push Dowlais’ lead up to a much more comfortable 17-6, but it also seemed to light a spark in the home side that would burn brightly for the remainder of the match.

While Mold would go on to make no marks on the score board throughout the entire second half, Dowlais only soared higher and higher.

The near-constant feeling of stalemate that, with the exception of Dowlais’ tries, had seemed to permeate the entire game up until that point was finally broken, leaving the home side to take control of the game.

While they were far from scoring every few minutes, Dowlais seemed to thoroughly take the wind out of Mold’s sails from this point on, with the visitors spending most of the latter stages of the match on the back foot.

And even if the boys weren’t scoring quite that often, they still scored more than enough to put the game to bed.

Over the course of the rest of the game, Dowlais would secure two more converted tries, the first touched down by Harley Swift and the second by Luke Evans, with both being converted once again by Sion Martin, leaving the boys with what would be enough tries for a bonus point, had this bout been a regular league match.

Towering over the visitors with a vast 25 point lead, the twilight of the game passed mostly without incident or much cause for concern. Mold seemed to gather up something of a second wind in the closing minutes, leading to one last desperate attack on the Dowlais try line, but it was all for naught in the end, as the final whistle brought the match to a close with a score of 31-6.

Overall, this was a more than solid win for Dowlais. Although things were slow-going at first, once they picked up their momentum in the second half, they carried it as far as they needed to and then some, decisively taking the score far past Mold’s reach.

Let’s hope that this streak of great wins can continue as Dowlais return to league matches next week and face Talywain away.