AFTER three consecutive defeats in the new Blues Premier Youth League by the narrowest of margins, last Saturday saw the young Penarth RFC Youth team's hard work finally pay off when they picked up a bonus point 24-0 win over visitors Abercynon RFC Youth who came to the Athletic club with three straight wins behind them.

Despite three closely fought games within the league which saw the Penarth boys picking up 2 bonus points in defeat, a turning point came 2 weeks ago when the Penarth boys were narrowly 34-31 by a strong and much older Cardiff Met University team in the Welsh Youth Cup.

This seemed to spur the boys on to believing in themselves and realising they can compete against the older third year players and this paid dividends last Saturday when they played Abercynon at the Athletic field.

From the start, and against a strong wind at the Athletic Field, the mobile Penarth eight chased down the play and moved the ball quickly through the phases to push Abercynon onto the back foot.

With good control over the breakdown, Penarth prop Yas Ghandour broke free from the base of the ruck in Abercynon 22m and flicked the ball inside for scrum half Aled Rees to step around the full back and open up the scoring for the Penarth with only 5 minutes on the clock.

With the conversion just going wide of the posts the Penarth boys took an immediate 5-0 lead.

From the restart, the Abercynon boys came out from under the posts with more purpose and took the game to Penarth with a pick and go tactic from the base of the ruck.

The two sides started to cancel one another out with some great defensive play coming from the Penarth back row of Ryan Allan, Huw Leach and Thaine Baker. whilst the attacking line of Joe Williams, Matt Frost and Mike Halligan and Matt Wiltshire tested the Abercynon defensive lines on several occasions.

With 25 minutes of the first half gone, Aled Rees playing a Penalty advantage, chipped the ball over the heads of the Abercynon defence only to be deliberately tripped by the opposition eight and with a yellow card about to be shown by the referee, the Abercynon player decided to argue the decision which resulted in the official turning the yellow to a red and giving him his marching orders.

The teams tuned round at half-time with Penarth leading 5- 0 and with the wind behind their backs in the second half.

With words of encouragement and advice from the Penarth coaching team the Penarth boys started the second half with real purpose and with 10 minutes hooker and captain Tom Griffiths executed a perfect line out move which saw the ball fed back to him by lock Will Parsons for the hooker to score in the corner and take Penarth to a 10 - 0 lead.

Despite good defence from the visitors, the Penarth boys pushed on and the defensive line of Abercynon was breached again 6 minutes later when a great run by wing Will Hardy from his own half, saw the ball popped inside to centre Mike Halligan to run in under the posts.

With the conversion by replacement outside half Drew Musa, Penarth led by 17 - 0.

With Penarth taking full advantage of the wind and dominating the broken play on 30 minutes they breached the Abercynon lines when good work by wing Zacc Fillau took the ball back into the Abercynon half.

Working the ball off several break down phases, the Penarth boys spun it wide creating an overlap and it was Wing Hardy that took the ball under the posts.

With the conversion again by Musa the final score was 24-0.

Next up sees the Youth away to Aberdare in the Blues Premier Youth league.