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No doubting that Thomas has the right stuff!

Rhydyfelin 30-15 Cae

Rhydyfelin is perhaps most famous for having the Cardinal Newman school within its boundaries, the legendary school, sometimes known as the "Eton" of the South Wales Valleys is world renowned for turning out skilful five a side footballers and expert match reporters.

First Half: Rhydyfelin 20-0 Cae

There was an eerie fog around the ground at kick off (no, there really was) as we prepared for our last game of 2016 and the team wanting to end the year in the traditional manner, duly conceded a try in the first minute. Now, I'm all for tradition but can we please try to go at least two minutes before conceding tries next year?
Things were going to get worse before they got better though and Rhydyfelin ruthlessly drove home their advantage for the rest of the half. They were strong and physical and bravely as the little green army battled, three more tries were scored before the half time hooter sounded.

Second Half: Rhydyfelin 30-15 Cae

Now, if conceding a try in the first minute of the first half is tradition then so is the stunning second half comeback. I watched awe struck as Wayne delivered the half time team talk, if Winston Churchill had produced a speech half as good as this in 1940 then surely the Germans would never have dared to attempt to attack us in our Island home.
The boys were so overwhelmed that they had tears in their eyes as the second half kicked off and I caught Liam reciting out loud whole passages of Henry V, "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers" etc etc....
Rhydyfelin scored two more tries this half but were out scored by the determined little green army.
First up, that artful dodger, Cian Cooper produced one of his trademark scrum half dashes from a penalty,  diving bravely over the line at the feet of the opposition.
After some good scavenging in the loose, a misplaced pass was picked up by Tom Lewis and he was away to score his obligatory try, before little Ry who had performed brilliantly all game as usual went over to round off the scoring.
Special mention to the team defence this half, Absolutely brilliant all round and I wouldn't like to single any individual out.

Man of the Match

Was Thomas Crane, one of our new players, who impressed with his reading of the game both in attack and defence, running strongly and producing some deft offloads.
When asked what he put his fine performance down to, he replied. "what else would you expect? With such sensational coaches as Wayne, Mark, Lew and Chris combined with the expert management and photos of the two Helen's  I simply can't go wrong." At this point, I stopped and asked if he had anyone else he wanted to mention? He paused for a moment and then said with some hesitance "the brilliant match reporter  maybe?".  Fancy the lad saying that! He didn't half have me blushing.....brilliant player though, he will surely go far.

That's it for 2016 folks, from all of us at green army match reporting NHQ, have a great Christmas and New Year and we will see you on the other side. Onwards and upwards....