The Cardiff & Vale ‘Fantasy League’
As the 6 Nations started, the boys and their Llandaff North U13 sponsors tucked into the job of picking their ‘Fantasy League’ teams and it got me thinking as we arrived on a gorgeous spring morning at the district’s South Western outpost, how many coaches around the district if they could pick their Cardiff and Vale version would have any ‘Amber and Black’ as shirt colours on their screens? Given the rules that they’d only be allowed a maximum of 4 from the district champions Cowbridge or indeed any other team, there was a chance.
Llantwit are a friendly crowd and their coach who we know well is the best ref in the district. He allowed the game to flow and despite his team looking a little weaker than I know he’d have liked the North took control with flowing rugby after Ben Hembury had felled their enormous number 8 in the opening moments. Ewan Calder having remembered his gumshield this week was given a full run in our own 8 shirt and scored 2 almost identical tries from close range before some sloppy and hesitant defending on our right wing allowed the ‘Blood and Blacks’ back into it as the aforementioned boy mountain collapsed on a fly hack through to our line.
We weren’t going to allow this to puncture our claims for district fantasy team selection. We aren’t the ‘Italy’ of the district…Sam Thomas started at ’10’ for the first time and scored a hatrick of tries after great team work on 2 of those occasions by Dylan and Samuel. Any of the district coaches may well have been toying with selecting our own Chris Thompson as their Outside Centre in recent months yet may well have felt frustrated as despite fine performances he was yet to score to earn them many fantasy points.
Today, at last! The drought ended as Archie and Ben unselfishly fed Chris to score his first try for the club on the right flank with his pace taking him under the Llantwit posts . The final score in a dominant display was a just reward for Dylan who charged over from a set piece scrum. It rewarded a ferocious display; he was simply too hot for Llantwit to handle and he played ‘on the edge’ throughout.
The final Llantwit thrust to score a token consolation was satisfyingly dampened by our solid defence, the final margin a sound reward. As we left I thought, ‘yes, perhaps some of the district coaches might well dip into the ‘Amber and Black’ ranks when picking their imaginary district Fantasy team, to sit comfortably alongside the illustrious boys from Penarth, Cowbridge, St Peters and indeed the Zulu tribe from the Garth’. We are no district leaders for sure but happily mid table and with a few gems in our Amber and Black box of tricks!…..
Llantwit Major U13’s 5 – 39 Llandaff North U13’s
Tries:- S.Thomas (3) E.Calder (2) C.Thompson, D.Bignell
Conversions:- M.Strinati (2)
Man of the Match:- S.Thomas
Tom Jameson, U13 manager
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