THERE was another victory for Llangollen to celebrate earlier this month.

Before COVID-19 forced the current season to be put on hold, Llan welcomed Gwynedd outfit Porthmadog to Tower Fields.

At the end of a hard-fought contest, Llangollen ran out 26-17 winners.

This was to be a battle of the newly establish men’s teams for both clubs.

From the kick-off, Llangollen showed they wanted to play open rugby and they attack the opposition backline from the first whistle.

The Porthmadog defence stood strong for a quarter-of-an-hour until Ryan Edwards received the ball and managed to get over the try line.

Llangollen continued to create chances after they took the lead and they were rewarded with further tries from Morgan Hughes and second row Daniel Davies, who powered over the line following good footwork.

With the score now at 19-0 in their favour, Llangollen knew the next try would be vital in deciding who would win the contest.

Back came the visitors, though, and with a couple of missed tackles, Llangollen let in Porthmadog to score close to the posts.

With the successful conversion, the gap between the respective teams was down to 12 points by the time the half-time whistle was sounded.

With the wind now in their sails, Porthmadog’s big ball carriers started testing the Llangollen defence.

However, from some brave tackling, Llangollen players put their bodies on the line in their efforts to prevent further scores.

It was inevitable that Porthmadog would score again at some point, but Llangollen showed some terrific resolve in defence.

Impressive for the home side was Iwan Jones, who carried the ball well all game.

He combined with Charlie Turner, who offloaded to Ryan Edwards and he scored his second try of the game to put the contest out of reach of Porthmadog.

Reflecting on the encounter, Llangollen head coach Gwyndaf Davies said: “I’m happy with the result and even happier with the performance, in particular the first half where we kept the ball well and created a lot of opportunities and scored three great tries.

"I thought Porthmadog played very well in the second half and put us under a lot of pressure with their big ball carriers and they scored some good points themselves.

"We had to dig deep at times and I was pleased with the character we showed.

"The game was played in great spirit and I look forward to the return leg with them in a couple of weeks.”