Five tries from Danyl Davies ensured that the Valley Cougars qualified for the National Conference South Final, beating Nottingham Outlaws 26-12 in Blackwood on September 13.
It’s the first ever national final for the Cougars, the feeder side to South Wales Scorpions.
They’ll go into the encounter with Sheffield Hallam Eagles on September 20 with confidence despite the South Yorkshire side winning all of their games this season.
Davies went over for the first of his handful for the Cougars on ten minutes, which was converted by Paul Emanuelli but Nottingham proved admiral opponents and wouldn’t budge for the next 25 minutes, both defences performing well in such a crucial game.
The Cougars eventually managed to break through but it took a good passing move to take it out to Davies for his second.
An error from kick-off gave Nottingham the chance to hit back and they made no mistake as Jimmy Goodwin scored near to the sticks and Jonny Shields converted. Cougars went into half-time with a slender 10-6 lead.
After a pep talk from player-coach Emanuelli, the Cougars came out of the changing rooms fired up and Davies only took five minutes to claim his hat-trick with the boss adding the extras.
A long run down the wing gave Davies his fourth just ten minutes later and Emanuelli converted again to make the score 22-6 and virtually seal the game.
Davies hammered the nail in the coffin with four minutes to go with an unconverted try but it was the Outlaws who had the final say with a consolation in the final minute, Shields going over and converting himself.
Emanuelli said: “I’m really delighted that we’re through to the Final and with our A side already winning the Welsh Shield, hopefully this could be the club’s second trophy of the season.
“We’ve worked really hard to get this far but we know what a tough game we have in store next week.”