Playing on a surface conducive to running rugby, Ebbw always looked in control and put the home side under a huge amount of pressure to the delight of Vale’s coaching staff of Neil Edwards and Jason Strange.
“TATA have a big and physical pack who will cause a lot of problems to other teams in this league,” said Edwards.
“They front up and disrupt game plans which is what they did and caused us to go off balance at times. There’ll be a few who will be nursing the hard knocks for a few days as our boys responded by putting in a hard physical shift themselves and it was certainly a bruiser up front.
“Pontypool are up with us next week, and I’m expecting another tough game next Saturday so there is no chance of us dropping our guard and we will be prepared for that”.
Outside half Dan Haymond’s immaculate kicking, the power of Spencer Gibson and Polu Uhi, and the excellence of flankers Cameron Reagan and Ronny Kynes represented the difference between the sides while talismatic second row Ashley Sweet was prominent in all aspects of play.
It was No. 8 Gibson who got the Steelmen’s first try when he took a pass from fellow back rower Kynes and superbly crashed his way through five tacklers to touch down. Haymond’s conversion added to his three previous penalties to made it 16-6, a lead Ebbw took into the half time break, despite being down to 13 men.
TATA had offered plenty of power and endeavour but were finding scoring chances hard to come by.
A third Gareth Walters penalty early in the second half made it 16-9, but that was the closest TATA got as two more Haymond penalties stretched the lead to 22-9 before lock Ben Davies somehow squeezed in at the corner.
Ebbw centre Polu Uhi then showed fantastic strength and power to shrug off half a dozen tacklers in running in from 20 metres. Haymond’s extras took the score to 29-14 and the scoring was completed when Ronny Kynes captured a third try which Josh Lewis converted.
Ultimately there was no bonus point for Ebbw, but they were very satisfied by another big win, especially over the champions of the West who will certainly be in the mix at the end of the season.
