Bargoed maintained their fine start to the Swalec Championship season with a third consecutive bonus point victory, scoring six unanswered tries at near neighbours Blackwood.
The home side had the territorial advantage in the first 15 minutes of the September 20 clash, but well organised aggressive defence from the Blues left Blackwood with just a Scott Turner penalty to show for their efforts.
Blackwood deployed a kicking game which the Blues coped with comfortably. Bargoed full-back Jordan Purcell fielded one such long kick, chipped and chased but got blocked in the traffic. Wing Lewis Protheroe followed up as the Blackwood defence knocked on under pressure and Purcell scooped up the ball and sidestepped over for the first try. Prosser converted and it was 3-7 after 18 minutes.
The restart went straight into touch and Bargoed called a scrum on the half way. The Blackwood eight buckled and referee Chris Williams signalled a penalty. Prosser kicked to within fifteen metres of the Blackwood line and a clean catch was delivered to scrum half Huw Rees who went blind and scored in the corner. Prossser’s conversion was pushed wide.
Bargoed’s forward dominance continued but no further scores were added and the half time whistle went with the score at 3-12.
Turner hit back almost immediately with a penalty just after the break but Bargoed were piling on the pressure. Captain Rhys Morgan called a scrum following a penalty half way inside the Blackwood 22.
The home front row went down and another penalty awarded followed by a reset and another penalty on the fifth scrum, referee Williams’ patience ran out and a penalty try awarded with a yellow card shown to tight head prop Tom Bevan. Prosser converted and Bargoed were in front and well on top at 6-19 after 53 minutes.
With only 15 minutes played in the second half the crowd had to suffer passive scrums with Blackwood having no front row replacements left and immediately Turner slotted over his third penalty to give the home side some hope.
However, Bargoed simply turned the focus of the game to their backs, made a few changes and the tries kept coming. Phil Price finished off a simple move with the ball passing through all the three-quarters en route to the winger scoring in the corner – Prosser converting well from the touchline to make it 9-26 and secure the bonus point after sixty two minutes.
The game was finally put to bed with replacement scrum half Pizey burgling the ball from Blackwood number eight David Brake as he picked up from the base of a static scrum and sprinting away for the fifth try – Prosser again converting.
Finally, with Blackwood pressing to get something from the game Bargoed broke out of defence from deep with forwards and backs inter-passing, the Blues sealed a very good away win with Pizey going over for his second. Prosser’s fine afternoon continued with his fifth conversion and Bargoed ran out winners by 40 points to 9.
Report provided by Bargoed RFC