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Saturday Llantwit Major welcomes Aberdare RFC to the Rec for their 4^th league game of the 2015/2016.

Aberdare began their life around 1890 as Aberaman RFC but in the early 1900’s Aberdare courted controversy and fell foul of the governing body. It was alleged that the club was kinked with professionalism, paid clubs to visit the town and allegedly on one occasion paid Treorchy the princely sum of £15 to throw a game so that Aberdare could be crowned league champions. The allegations saw several players and committee officials banned.

There are several recorded notable players from Aberdare including Dai “Tarw” Jones who was implicated in the earlier controversy, he was a dual code international winning 13 union caps that included two triple crowns before moving “north” and gaining two Welsh and two Great Britain rugby league caps. Will Hopkins was capped once in 1908. There are three extremely well known former Aberdare players starting with Keith Rowlands who was capped by both Wales and the British Lions before become an administrator of the game who became president of the Welsh Rugby Union succeeding the long standing Sir Tasker Watkins in 2004.

The most capped player from the club is none other than Dai Young, he was another dual code international who won 51 caps for Wales at Union and 3 Lions caps, he also went “North” and won a further 14 Wales Rugby League caps. With the advent of professionalism Young has been able to ply his vast experience to coaching and spent 8 seasons at Cardiff Blues before moving to Wasps in 2011 where he currently coaches.

Perhaps one of the most known former players of recent times is well known for the wrong reasons and that is of course young Owen Williams a prolific try scorer who played for Cardiff Blues and was a successful Wales under 20’s player with 12 appearances and had broken into the Wales set up in 2013 and gained 4 caps before a cruel injury put an end to that. Aberdare RFC have been phenomenal in highlighting Owen’s misfortune and have raised a significant amount of money for the care of this young man. By way of a thank you to Aberdare for switching the fixture there will be bucket collection at half time and all the proceeds will be handed over to Aberdare RFC to add to their fund raising. All at Llantwit Major wish Owen all the very best for the future.

Aberdare were promoted from Division Three East Central B last season with an impressive playing record of played 22 winning 18 and losing only 4. During the season they scored 836 points and 124 tries. They currently top this division having gained maximum points in the two games that they have played (the third game was abandoned due to a referee injury). So far they have score nearly 100 points in two games including 16 tries.

Llantwit Major lie one point behind them having played one more game. It will be a tough ask at the Rec but with more new players signing for the club in recent times competition for places will be hotting up and this is the type of headache that Head Coach Mark Jones and Player Coach Huw Williams will want rather than the doom and gloom that was forecast from some quarters in pre-season.

Mark and Huw are fiercely proud and professional individuals who will want to kick on and develop this set of players to its full potential and make sure that Llantwit Major remains in the thoughts of all league opponents.

A squad for the game has been named and will be finalised before the game but as you will see the squad includes some of the new players who have recently joined. Team to be selected from the following:

Wes Liscombe, Lee Wood, Leigh Burlingham, Gareth Watts, Rhys David, Geraint David, Tony Burrows, Dan Daw, Sam Booker, Rhys Dixon, Josh Austin, Ryan Watson, Huw Williams, Shaun Shea, Rob Carter, Dennis McIvor, Corey Hearne, Donovan Stoppel, Damian Gardner Ponting and Ryan Evans.

Kick-off is at 2.30pm but on a special day for Llantwit Major we welcome a touring veteran side from Denver in the form of Denver Highlanders. They are over in the UK for the World Cup and thanks to links with Huw Williams who played out in Denver we are lucky to secure such a fixture.

Kick off for the Llantwit Legends v Denver Highlanders is 12.30pm and following both the fixtures  all are welcome to stay on at the club to watch the World Cup games of Scotland v South Africa and of course England v Australia.

Just a note for your diaries also the game on 10^th October against Llandaff kicks off at 1.30pm to allow people the luxury of not rushing to watch the Wales V Australia game. On 17^th October the senior side has a break following a bye in the SWALEC Bowl.

See you all at the club Saturday as we enjoy some community rugby with an international flavour.