Fixture

Dowlais Vs Newport High School Old Boys 09/11/2024 Match Report

Score:

Newport High School Old Boys: 38

Dowlais: 17

Another disappointing defeat for Dowlais this week, away against Newport High School Old Boys.

Like most of their bouts this season, Dowlais didn’t get off to the worst of starts this week – in fact, they actually managed to hold their own quite well.

The first thirty or so minutes of this match were very low scoring ones for both sides, with the only points on the board for most of the half coming from a penalty kicked by Newport around fifteen minutes in.

But other than that, both sides seemed quite evenly matched, with Dowlais managing to hold their defensive lines strongly and even having a few promising try attempts early on, even if they all fell short due to a botched pass or ill-timed knock-on.

For much of the first half, the score sat at an uncertain, exciting 3-0, a near stalemate – one where it was definitely still anyone’s game.

Indeed, both sides seem so evenly matched that it seemed certain that the match as a whole would continue to be close and down to the wire right until the very end.

As the half closed in on its final ten minutes, after thirty minutes without anyone making it past the posts, it seemed likely that everyone was going to have to wait until after half-time to see which direction the match and its score would swing in.

But it was right at that moment that for Dowlais, unfortunately, everything began to unravel.

With ten minutes remaining in the first half, seemingly out of the blue, Newport HSOB suddenly managed to break through for the try that they’d been aiming for all match, bringing the score to 10-0 after a swift conversion, and suddenly giving Dowlais a much more daunting lead to overcome.

But while losing the stalemate that they’d been battling to take control of all match and especially conceding so close to half-time definitely weren’t ideal by any means, things definitely didn’t seem hopeless for Dowlais at that moment.

All things considered, a ten-point score gap was by no means an insurmountable lead. As long as they held it together for the remainder of the half, they’d still have a good chance to pull the game back in their favour after half-time.

But unfortunately, that plan wouldn’t quite pan out, as a mere couple of minutes later, the home side would unceremoniously break through for yet another converted try, and then another not long after that.

24-0, three tries and twenty-one points in five minutes.

Naturally, from there, the spirit and mood of the match underwent a very sudden and jarring shift.

In the blink of an eye, Dowlais had gone from strong contenders merely one try away from taking the lead to being left in their opponents’ dust, and staring down a truly discouraging score gap.

While the boys did seem to wake up from there and attempted to, at the very least, sneak in something onto the score board before half time, even having one very close attempt, (helped by Newport HSOB being struck with a late yellow card), they would be unable to make an impact in the minutes that they had left, bringing the first half to an end at 24-0 to the home side.

As you can probably imagine, Dowlais had one hell of a fight ahead of them for the next forty minutes – a fight which admittedly didn’t get off to the best of starts.

While the first few minutes of the second half more or less passed without incident, just before the clock reached the fifty-minute mark, Newport HSOB would secure yet another converted try, set in motion by a very lucky bounce from one of their kicks, taking the score even higher to 31-0.

With their opponents' having already comfortably secured a bonus a point, and now sitting more than thirty points behind, to put it lightly, things weren’t looking the best for Dowlais.

But to the boys’ credit, they didn’t let their discouraging position dull their spirits, as they continued to throw themselves at the home side’s defence in hopes of chipping away at their staggering lead in whatever way they could.

Although it was a slow, gritty, arduous process, over the next twenty minutes, they would finally start to have some good fortune, managing to score themselves two very well-earned tries – one at the fifty-five minute mark, touched down by Jonathan Sutton and converted by Nathan Pritchard, and another a few minutes later, scored by Nathan Pritchard.

But although Dowlais’ efforts had finally managed to put them on the score board, with said score sitting at 31-12, with Newport HSOB still comfortably in the lead, and with time beginning to run out, it was hard not to feel like the boys’ efforts were little more than drops in a bucket.

This impression wasn’t helped by what took place only a few more minutes later, when Newport HSOB would break through yet again for one more converted try, stretching their lead back out to 38-12.

Dowlais continued to battle on for the remainder of the match, and would even manage to score one more try in the end, touched down once again by Nathan Pritchard, but in the end, it didn’t amount to much, with their opponents still being more than twenty points ahead.

While the boys would gun for one last try in hopes of at least securing a bonus point, they simply didn’t have the time, as following their final try, the final whistle of the match would blow shortly after, bringing the game to its end with a final score of 38-17, a thorough, bonus point victory for Newport High School Old Boys.

Overall, in the wake of this match, I’m left feeling a similar frustration to the one that I felt after last week’s bout against Nelson, and after several of Dowlais’ other matches this season for that matter.

For the vast majority of this match, the boys put up a very competent, very solid performance.

They held their own and put up a very good fight for the first thirty minutes, managing to stay mostly even with their opponents, and I’d say that, despite a few defensive hiccups, they had a pretty good second half – one where they managed to score more tries than their opponents, with some nice plays to boot.

But once again, all of those merits ended up not amounting to much of anything in the end, all thanks to one particular stretch of the match – a span of just a couple of minutes that pretty much rendered all of the performance’s positives totally moot.

And I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out what stretch of the game I’m referring to here.

For all intents and purposes, the stretch just before half-time when Dowlais conceded three tries in the span of just five minutes totally sank their chances of winning this match.

After spending thirty minutes solidly competing and holding their own, falling apart in the way that they did and crippling themselves with a twenty-four point score gap going into the second half really didn’t leave them with much hope of a comeback – and once again, it really is a shame to see a mostly solid and strong performance be completely invalidated by just a few minutes of weak, sloppy play.

We’ll just have to hope for a tighter performance next week, when Dowlais play Blaenavon at home.