Nant have too much nous for struggling Mold

Leaders Nant Conwy picked up their ninth win at struggling Mold, running out 28-5 victors.

Nant Conwy fielded a more experienced side than Mold, enabling the visitors to initially win the war of attrition, converting their pressure into an opening try for Carwyn ap Myrddin under the posts, courtesy of a couple of missed tackles in the centre of the park.

Mold had held out numerous Nant surges towards the break but eventually succumbed to a late converted try, as the first stanza wore down to a close at 0-21, with the visitors crossing through Iaon Davies and Gareth Jones. Ap Myrddin added the extras to all three.

In the second half, some forced changes were made to the Mold pack and with some tweaking of tactics, the home side managed a well-read, intercept try from scrum half Jamie Winning to give the home side a glimmer of hope.

While the resurgent Mold were held out by Nant for long periods, the killer touch was lacking and another try through Elgan Davies was conceded at the opposite end to give the visitors a safety margin which they held onto until the final whistle was blown.

The try itself had an aura of inevitability about it, and while the score galvanised Mold into more action to try and score a comeback try, the visitors just did enough to hold on to the close to end the game 5-28 victors.

Mold’s Head Coach Les Byrne said, “It was difficult to lose again, but the lessons continue to be learned and given a stable player platform, the results will start to come”.

“We are obviously disappointed to lose this particular match, but it was very useful to get the experienced old head of Andy Roberts onto the pitch today along with the returning Luke Jones, Dan Bowden, Gareth Evans and Richard Hopkins who all showed up. As a team, we have shown a tremendous amount of potential as have our other relatively young squad members turning out for us in this and previous weeks,” he said.

“Nant put in a strong and powerful performance today and we have learned valuable lessons from that. With several of our missing experienced players available for selection in the coming weeks I think we will be in a strong position after we get the second round of the Swalec plate out of the way in three weeks time."

"This game showed how crucial the breakdown area is," he said. "We are looking to shore that area up, and shore it up we will! However, we have a couple more injuries in the squad, that's the reality which we have to handle, so a lot of it will be mental rather than physical this week. You just can't train as you would normally train with players missing. You just have to make sure the guys that turn out on the day have got a full tank on a Saturday and have got good clarity – that will be our sole focus this week."

Meanwhile, Caernarfon remain in hot pursuit of leaders Nant after they notched up a try bonus 40-7 triumph at Llandudno.

The highfliers crossed for six tries with Alan Mark-Roberts bagging a brace with Lee Williams, Carnedd Williams, Bari Jones ad Andrew Williams also touching down. Kelvin Morris had a solid day with the boot landing five out of six conversions.

The hosts meanwhile were restricted to a solitary try from James Gregson.

Elsewhere, Bethesda picked up their fifth victory grinding out a 13-8 home win over Pwllheli and Ruthin registered only their third win of the season with a 26-10 home success over Bala.

Finally, Bro Ffestiniog move to within three points of the leaders thanks to a bonus point 34-24 triumph at Llangefni.