photo by Simon Green

The Bridgend Blue Bulls were given a mighty scare last Saturday before finally seeing off the Blackwood Bulldogs at Porthcawl RFC, however the game wasn’t quite as dramatic as last years last second Blue Bulls victory.

Blackwood were the better side in the opening quarter and took advantage of poor Bridgend discipline by going into a deserved 10-0 lead thanks to two tries and a conversion from scrum half Paul Emanuelli.

It took until the 33rd minute for the reigning Welsh Champions to finally get on the coresheet when Jon Williams came off the bench and made an immediate impact by forcing his way over in the corner and brining his side back into the game, and just before the break Blue Bulls scrum half Craig Fox found a gaping hole in the Blackwood defence to score Bridgends second and Paul Smithson added the kick to bring the scores level at half time.

Fox had what he thought was his second score of the game disallowed early in the

second half after the referee penalised him for crossing and the visitors made them pay by breaking away and scoring through their lively prop Paul Young with Emanuelli converting to put the Gwent side six points clear.

The Blue Bulls finally got themselves back on track and took the lead for the first time midway through the second half thanks to two quick tries from Lenny Woodard, the second coming after a barging run from Mathew Morgan, and moments later the Bulls 40 year old Fijian powerhouse Tevita Manaseitava powered his way over the line handing off three would-be tacklers to give his side a 10 point lead.

But Blackwood showed they had true fighting spirit and closed the gap thanks to a David James try and third Emanuelli conversion and almost snatched victory when Dale Taylor broke away and only a crunching tackle from Karl Hocking saved the day.

Then with just seconds to go Bridgend made the game safe when 2nd row Griff Davies gathered up a lose Bulldogs pass and raced under the posts to score Bridgends sixth try and give the Blue Bulls a deserved but hard-fought victory.

article by Simon Green
2 June 2007