Fixture

The Ben Francis Bowl Cup final took place in Usk on a pleasant Tuesday evening. The Stars opponents were Abergavenny who play in the SWALEC league 2 East; one above the Stars league. The Stars were therefore expecting a hard difficult game.

This was the first time in their history that the Stars have played Abergavenny in a competitive match. It was clear during the match warm up that the Stars players were very motivated and hungry to win this cup and have a fairy tale ending to their season.

Abergavenny played down the slight slope in the 1^st half and quickly got into their stride scoring an unconverted try in the first 10 minutes. During this period perhaps the Stars showed Abergavenny too much respect but soon shake off this respect taking the game to Abergavenny with Kasey Hurley scoring a well worked try converted by Nathan Hughes, to take him over 100 points for the season. 7-5 to the Stars.

Solid defence by all of the Stars team kept Abergavenny at bay. The Stars used the ball well to gain territory and form a Stars line out on Abergavenny’s 5 metre line the forwards drove Captain Matty Dix over the Abergavenny’s try line for a fantastic unconverted try  to increase their lead to 12-5.

Shortly after this try Abergavenny kept a lot of possession and ended up with a line out 10 metres from the Stars try line. From this line out the Stars forwards left a big gap for one of the Abergavenny forwards to run through and score an unconverted try in the corner to level the game 12-12. This did not affect the game and on the stroke of half time the ref awarded the Stars a penalty just inside Abergavenny’s half. Nathan Hughes coolly kicked this long difficult penalty to give the Stars a lead of 15-12 at half time.

The Stars then had the advantage of playing downhill however the game became a very nervous affair and it was evident that the team who scored first would win the cup. The Stars defence was massive and Tom Burriss, Brad Jones & Mike Preece put some huge hits in. Both defences stood firm then with 10 minutes to go the ref gave scrum half Calum Williams a soft yellow card. The advantage then shifted to Abergavenny but the Stars further upped their game and defended resolutely; it looked as if the cup was theirs.

Then in the 8^th minute of injury time somehow Abergavenny managed to get their hands on the ball and one of their back row forwards scored an unconverted try in the corner. Once the conversion was kicked the ref blew up to break the stars player’s hearts because they put everything they had into the game and deserved to win. Final score 17-15 to Abergavenny.

This was a fantastic performance by the Stars players and the club are very very proud of a committed bunch of players and coaches who did everything they could for the clubs badge and definitely did not deserve to lose in the manner that they did.

There was a large crowd watching the game and towards the end the majority of neutrals were shouting for the Stars; this shows that the best and most popular side lost on the day.

The Stars players eventually recovered and now looks forward to their well deserved tour to Poland on 1^st June and their very last game of the season against Juvenia in Krakow on 4 June 2016.

Stars together stronger.