Fixture

Mountain Ash Youth, the Heart of Wales Cup holders for the last two seasons, made it a hat-trick of finals with an 11-6 win in Merthyr. Although the home team had the better of the territory throughout the match, the Young Firm’s defence was excellent with Merthyr unable to breach it. The Mount forwards did well throughout the game and both centres, Jarrod Cushion and Daniel Cartwright tackling well, to stop several Merthyr attempts to break through.

Full back and captain Jack Roberts kicked an early 22 metre penalty to make it 3-0. Merthyr had the better of the next 15 or so minutes, with Mount not helping themselves by missing kicks to touch. A 25 metre penalty by the hosts levelled the scores, but just before half time, the Young Firm put together their best passage of play throughout the game, which was started by scrum half Morgan Cartwright, who took a quick penalty in the Merthyr half and put right wing Morgan James away down the touchline. The Mount forwards were quickly in support to recycle the ball from 10 metres out and it took staunch Merthyr defence to stop a number of drives over. From another ruck, scrum half Cartwright displayed good vision to chip perfectly across field over the Merthyr defence into the arms of centre Daniel Cartwright who touched down in the corner to finish off a sustained attack. Full back Roberts’ conversion fell just under the bar and half time was called with Mount 8-3 up.

The second half was much the same as the first - competitive but with defences on top. Merthyr had the better of the territory but a well organised and committed Mount defence kept them out. A 35 metre penalty by the hosts reduced the Young Firm’s lead to 8-6 early in the second half but it was short lived as full back Roberts kicked a 41 metre penalty to take his side’s lead up to 11-6 after 15 minutes.

Once again, Mount’s failure to make touch gave Merthyr the opportunity to counter attack which they did, but once again they found no weak spot in the Mount defence and even though a Mount forward was yellow carded and backchat both cost penalties in the last quarter, Merthyr could not take advantage of a couple of 5 metre lineouts.

With time running out, a final Merthyr attack was stopped once again in midfield, Cartwright making the tackle, which flanker Jordan Burke was quickly in on to secure a penalty for the Young Firm. Full back Roberts booted the ball long and high into the dark of the night to take the Mount to a third win over Merthyr this season, and into the final for the third successive year with a chance of a unique hat-trick of wins as well.