Fixture

Highly fancied Tata Steel flying high after an opening day rout over Ystalyfera came to grief at Abernant Park against a hungry committed Glynneath side whose ferocious tackling throughout the game unsettled the visitors.Glynneath nearly opened the scoring as early as the second minute when a kick upfield by Scott Hawkins had the Tata defence in all sorts of trouble and only a knock on close to the line saved the visitors.Glynneath were intent on coming away with a score and did through the boot of Dylan Francis firing over a penalty. After some exciting play by Tata backs and forwards combined it was Glynneath who increased their lead with another penalty by Dylan Francis this time a forty five metre effort. Glynneath were unlucky when kicking a loose ball through it bounced kindly for Jacob Williams whose pace saw him slice through the home defence for a great try. Surprisingly the conversion went wide of the posts to leave Glynneath’s lead intact . The game was punctuated with penalties which prevented the game from flowing when it did, Glynneath who were enjoying some good line out possession against their bigger opponents were denied a try from a driving maul and Tata were penalised with a yellow card. Corey Evans put Tata ahead for the first time with a penalty making amends for his earlier miss . Glynneath had a try wiped off when Jordan Griffiths coming on for injured Captain Aled Evans opened up the Tata defence with a strong run only for the referee to deem there was crossing.Tata were given another yellow card and with Glynneath enjoying a lot of possession another strong drive from a line out saw this time the ball go wide and centre Jed O’Reilly left the visitors defence flat footed for a great try. Dylan Francis converting. Glynneath were camped on the Tata line but couldn’t break through the defence only to settle for another successful penalty by Dylan Francis to put Glynneath further ahead. Italian was Glynneath’s turn to lose a player to the bin for the last ten minutes and they fought hard to keep Tata out and the visitor’s Corey Evans slotted over a penalty to set up a nail biting closing end to the game with Glynneath holding out for a well deserved win and a great start to the season Full time Glynneath 16 Tata Steel 11