Fixture

Barry 1^st XV travelled to Minster Road Cardiff on Saturday for an East Central Division 2 game against their old rivals St Peters RFC who are currently in second place in the division.

From the kick off St Peters started the game very well and put immediate pressure on the Barry side. The visitors seemed very sluggish initially and did not seem to have any answer to this initial onslaught and conceded the first try of the game after only six minutes or so of play. With the conversion unsuccessful Barry were 5 points adrift and it looked as though a massive defeat was on the cards.

However, this was not to be, as this early lead by St Peters seemed to activate the Barry side and for the next fifteen minutes or so of play they came back very strongly and the teams shared possession equally. On the half hour mark one of the St Peters backs was deemed to be offside and Barry Full back Kyle Barros made no mistake with the penalty.

With the score at 5 – 3 most people watching expected a positive response from the home side but in fact Barry did not let them off the hook and after only a further two minutes of play a long probing kick by Barry captain of the day Einan Scott resulted in the ‘Rocks’ full back being caught in possession by two of the Barry forwards after some fine backing up play. The ball was ripped out of the defenders hands by Rob Williams who then went over in the corner for Barry’s first try of the match. With the touchline conversion being unsuccessful Barry were 5 - 8 up with thirty minutes off the half played.

This was not in St Peters game plan and they seemed a little unsettled by this change in the score line. Tempers frayed and during the last 10 minutes of the half three players were shown the yellow card, two from Barry and one from St. Peters. This caused problems for both sides but it was St Peters who came of best during this period of play scoring a converted try against a Kyle Barros penalty for Barry.

Half time score St Peters 12 Barry 11

The second half started with both sides feeling they had a good chance of winning and understandably so with only one point difference between them. Barry continued putting pressure on the home side for the first ten minutes of the second half and it paid off when one of the Rocks forwards was caught off side. This enabled Barry to take a 12 - 14 lead with a well taken penalty by full back Kyle Baross. One of Barry’s strengths has always been their defensive game but it let them down badly 25 minutes into the half when a missed tackle allowed one of the St Peter’s centres Alex Jones to run a full 30 yards to touch down for an unconverted try. With the score at 17 -14 Barry needed to pull something out of the bag if they wanted to win the match.  Ironically one of the Barry supporters quipped ‘we need something like the try that Luke O’Sullivan scored a year ago to get back into this game game’. No sooner had he said that Barry had a lineout and flanker Luke O’Sullivan peeled off the back of the line and ran a full 40 yards thwarting would be tacklers to touch down under the post for a try which Kyle Baross converted.

With the score at 17 - 21 in Barry’s favour things were looking good if they could only hold out. For the last 10 minutes of the game St Peter’s threw everything they had at Barry only to be held up by a resilient defence. On the 40 minute mark Barry had a lineout 5 yards from their own line and the referee deemed the throw in to be not straight. How on earth he came to that decision is a bit of a mystery because the ball was thrown to the prop in the front of the line out and the referee was standing at the back. From the resulting St Peter’s scrum the St Peters scrum half knocked the ball on which was not seen by the referee and he and the ball were pushed by his forwards towards the line and the ball grounded a foot or so short of the line. The referee however said it had been grounded over the line and he awarded a try and the conversion added an extra two points.

As soon as the ball was converted the referee blew his whistle for full time after having told the Barry boys after the try that there was 5 minutes left.

So once again this season, as a result of poor refereeing, Barry were denied 4points and lost their third game in a row.

On a positive note this was a much better performance from Barry and the coaches can be pleased with their performance

Final score St Peter’s 24 Barry 21

Next week Barry are at home to LLantrisant RFC Kick off 2.30 pm

Lottery numbers are...4...10...14...18. No winners this week so prize increases to £3515.