WHITLAND YOUTH 27 pts. MILFORD HAVEN YOUTH 29

An evening game at the top ground in Whitland on Wednesday of last week saw a great game of rugby from two committed sides. Milford Haven were the visitors who brought a very strong side for the midweek fixture. Whitland, who continued with their policy of playing their under 18s side, had an early breakthrough when, after only two minutes, Milford were guilty of not releasing the ball; the penalty was kicked by Steffan James. Whitland were awarded a second penalty after a scrum collapsed, with James again converted the kick to make it 6-0. The home side increased their lead when, after a scrum on the 22, the ball was fed out to number 10 James, who put Geraint Jones through the hole to score. James converted the try to take the score to 13-0. Milford struck back from a scrum in their own 22 when their big number eight picked the ball up and ran through some weak tackling all the way up to the Whitland try-line, before giving the ball to the supporting winger to score their first points of the evening. Strong scrummaging in the Milford half from the Whitland front row of Gethin Lewis, Richard Waters and Gethin Benjamin - the latter playing only his second game in 15 months due to knee surgery - allowed Whitland to run the ball and they managed several phases of play before Milford were eventually penalised for lying over the top. James stepped up to take the penalty and added an extra three points. The visitors then ran in two further tries, the second of which was after 40 minutes of play after the referee had added an extra five minutes to the half. This made the half-time score to 19-16 to Milford. At the start of the second half, a lineout throw to Whitland on the visitors' five-metre line was won by man-of-the match Aled John to set up-a driving maul towards the try line. Casper Lewis then broke to the blind side and bagged a try, taking the score to 21-19. Milford were unlucky when a good run saw them through to score another try, only to be called back for a forward pass. The accurate boot of James kept the scoreboard ticking over with two further penalties, the second one being awarded for a high tackle which saw the Milford player to the bin for 10 minutes. Milford number eight Sam Dawson continued to impress and broke again to score under the posts, but unbelievably they missed the conversion, 27-24. This was still the score at the end of the allocated 70 minutes for youth rugby. However, the referee appeared to believe it was a senior match and again played on, with Milford taking full advantage of the extra five minutes to run in their final try and win the game 29-27 in what was an excellent advert for youth rugby in Pembrokeshire.