Dragons 25, Scarlets 27.
Where to start with that, eh? It’s taken a few hours to calm down before writing this. We had 40 minutes of excellent rugby. The game we’ve been promised. Forwards linking with backs in a dynamic running game. And then we had 40 minutes of the same headless kicking game we suffered through in the Glasgow match.
We started well (and again…), Charteris taking the kick off from Arlidge, and the ball didn’t leave the Scarlets half for the next twenty minutes.
Stoddart fumbled, Martens didn’t find touch and a promising move broke down when Selley knocked on. Martens gave away a penalty for being on the wrong side of a ruck, and Arlidge slotted over the first points of the evening on 6 minutes.
Almost straight away Cooper gave away another penalty for not rolling away (how nice it is to write about Cooper buggering up, and it not mean a Drags player) and Arlidge took another three points on 9 minutes. 6-0 in under 10 minutes. Fantastic.
On ten minutes some excellent work at the ruck won us another penalty, which Arlidge just sent wide; oh well, never mind.
Nothing was going right for the Turk; Martens had a kick charged down, Meeuws knocked the ball on in his own 22. We set up a ruck from Adam Jones, the ball came out to Stcherbina who created space for Sidey. Sidey couldn’t quite make it on his own but shipped the ball left to Fuss who slid in with no trouble. Arlidge sliced the conversion to make the score 11-0 in 15 minutes.
Oh we were roaring, boys. The Turks looked positively shell shocked in the face of our attack. We were up on them so fast that they couldn’t do anything; there were knock ons and stupid decisions all round, as first one player then another was caught in the headlights of our intent.
It went to our heads a bit, maybe, and Parks was penalised for not rolling away, although it looked a little harsh to me. Blackie then got penalised for taking out the lifter in the resulting lineout, and Steve Jones managed to ping the penalty in off the post. 11-3 in 20 minutes. First time the Turks had been outside their own half.
Still , we recovered from that well, and went patiently through the phases, first one way, then the next, until finally their line broke and Arlidge punched the ball through; Fuss almost got to it, an all. The rain started hammering down, straight into the Turks faces, and they were in all sorts of trouble – Jones ran straight into Parks and bounced off chasing his 22 drop out, and play stopped for a good five minutes while he recovered.
The Turks were still giving away penalties, Lewis Evans was taking their ball off them in the lineout and Lyons was penalised for closing the gap, resulting in a five yard line. Reed tapped the ball down to Martens, who failed to gather. Willis barged through to get the ball down and a try was awarded, after a TMO decision. Arlidge got the extras to put the score at 18-3 after 28 minutes.
The Turks managed another rare foray into our half, and Parks gave away a penalty under the posts. An easy kick for Jones, to put the score at 18-6.
Charteris again got the restart, but was forced into touch, and the Turks ran it back at us. Lou Reed was turned over deep in our half, and Stcherbina pt in a walloping 80 yard touch finder to kee pus in the right half of the pitch. Some sustained pressure resulted in a ruck on the Turk line, from where Lewis Evans barged over in a great heap of bodies. It looked like Jones might have kept him out, so James Jones referred to the TMO. The decision came back – “I can’t see if it’s a try or not – five yard scrum, black ball” to which the ref, in an astonishing display of fair mindedness to us, replied: “ I asked if there was any reason I couldn’t award the try – if you can’t see anything I’m going to award it”
Arlidge again slotted over the kick, making the score 25-6 at 36 minutes.
We had a brief wobble after this – Lewis Evans gave a way a pen for offside, and Fussell ripped the ball off Stoddart in the resulting attack, only to carry it over. Slick awarded the scrum despite it being past time, and we had to wait for a five yard scrum to be reset and martens to knock on before going in.
Paul Turner was beaming in the halftime interview, although he warned with the wind the way it was that 25 points wouldn’t be enough, and we’d need to continue scoring in the second half to assure the win.
And then we have the second half. Into the teeth of a stiff wind, remember, although by this time the wind had stopped.
We gave away two penalties in five minutes; easy ones. The score went to 25-12 and the sinking feeling started in the pit of my stomach. After a cracking run by Daniel which left him injured Nathan Brew came on.
Slick Jones is a ref who goes with the side with the momentum, and with it against us we were getting pinged for everything. Selley gave away a pen right in front of the posts and got carded for his efforts. The Turk opted for a scrum in front of the posts, having brought Easterby and Macleod on; the good news is that we may have creaked a little, but things haven’t improved that much for them since last season, despite all the new signings. The Dwarf had come on for Blackie and all was well. The bad news is that they’d brought Roberts on for Martens. Martens would have ballsed it up, but Roberts didn’t and wormed his way over to score. Steve Jones missed the kick, leaving the score at 25-17. They’d scored 11 points in 12 minutes and we were the ones looking shell shocked.
Instead of retreating, regrouping and sticking it up the jumper every time we got the ball we hoofed it downfield into the wind and straight down the throat of Morgan Stoddart or Steve Jones. The ball was either hoofed back, with interest, into touch, or run back at us by Stoddart. Eventually Stoddart linked up to put Brew in. The pass may have been forward, but it would be churlish to moan; they were rewarded for an endeavour that we just weren’t showing. Steve Jones brought them to within a point with the conversion, giving us 18 minutes of play and just a single point cushion.
We got a rare second half penalty on 73 minutes for the Turks holding on in the tackle, on their 22, but we spurned the points and opted for the lineout, which promptly fell apart.
Brew almost scored again, but failed to hold on to Gavin Evans cross kick with the line just lying there, all open, ten metres away and no-one in front of him. It’s good to see some things don’t change. Jones almost got a drop goal at the end of normal time, but it went just wide.
Finally, four minutes into injury time, at a scrum deep in our 22 Robert Lewis went off his feet at the ruck, giving James Jones the excuse he had been looking for. He blew for the penalty, and Steve Jones chipped it over. 25-27, 77 minutes gone. No way back for us.

How can a team look so good, and then look so bad? Yes, the Turks made a lot of errors in the first half, but they were because of pressure. When we were put under similar pressure in the second half we started kicking possession away, when we needed to go through the phases and not give them a sniff of the ball.
It wasn’t just Arlidge, mind; Connor and Evans both were guilty – Arlidge managed to put the kicks where he wanted them to go, which was the main difference.
So – the bad points first:
Pointless kicking game. We saw it last week against Glasgow, and it came back to haunt us this week. High kicks, into the wind, down the throat of a fast fullback who loves nothing more than to run with the ball.
Weak tackling. Darren Daniels was nearly in for a try in the first half, but Stcherbina stopped him with an epic run across the pitch. If we’d made one of the previous four tackle attempts though such heroics wouldn’t have been necessary. Repeatedly rubbish tackling made Stoddart look a lot better than he is.
Appalling discipline. We gave away fifteen points in unnecessary, stupid penalties. Not entering a ruck correctly. Going off the feet when there’s only one opposing player at the ruck. I’ll let Joe off as that ball was definitely out when he got pinged.
Total lack of composure. Oh we sing when we’re winning, alright. When the pressure’s on we fold like the rocks at Cwmtudu.
Still, now the utter, crushing disappointment of it all has worn off a bit (you don’t believe me? My boy was crying his heart out come the final whistle; mind you, he’s only twelve weeks old) the positives are plain. Have you ever seen us play like we did in the first half before? We’ve ground out the wins before, and we’ve rumbled over the top of teams before, but I don’t ever recall us skipping over a team before. It’s a whole new thing for us.
There were plenty of positives to take away from the first half, at least. Last week wasn’t a fluke for Arlidge; it appears he really can control a ball. Stcherbina created space well for Sidey. Fussell had another good game; in fact our backline looked as good as it ever has in the first half.
Despite the Turks beefing up their scrum they still struggled – not as much as previous years, but we were sufficiently comfortable that we could face an attacking 5 yard scrum when Selley was in the bin with 7 men, leaving Joe to cover the wing position. If their scrum had been even close to ours they would of fancied a rumble over against seven men, but they couldn’t produce it. I think our scrum will cope with pretty much everything except maybe Toulouse this season, on that performance.
We were far more committed in the contact and the ruck; it took Easterby, one of the best back row players in the world, to come on and settle things down. Before that we were taking the ball off them at will, almost.
Charteris and Jones have improved loads over last season. Dynamic in the loose, Charteris was catching our own restarts.
Lewis Evans had an excellent game, scoring a try, pinching a lineout and being an all round pain in the neck for the turks, until he was replaced, apparently injured. Dollman was much improved at fullback as well, until he was likewise injured. He needs to be careful or he’ll be there full time.
A few more performances like that, a proper fullback, a bit of confidence and a whole bunch of discipline and we’ll be contenders. No HEC success this year, but maybe next.

Oh, and Steve’s lovely photos? That’s Charteris, that is. Jumping. In the lineout.