Pontypridd 6 Ebbw Vale 10

A TRY from Ebbw Vale's Scott Mitchell seven minutes from time sealed their first ever league win at Pontypridd as the Steelmen earned a shock victory.

Since league rugby was introduced in Wales during the 1990-91 season, Vale have never managed to win at Sardis Road and it has been nearly fifteen years since full back Arwel Parry scored 11 points to help the Steelmen to a 23-17 win there in April 1988.

Although Ponty were missing internationals Mefin Davies and Robert Sidoli, they still had most of the first-choice side and they brought Michael Owen and Richard Parks off the bench.

It had been an evenly balanced contest until Vale's Andrew Bevan set off on a long-range run at the Pontypridd run which ended in Ebbw Vale winning the lineout before Mitchell just managed to squeeze and ground the ball.

Referee Colin Saunders was in some doubt - there had been a hint of a double movement - but he signalled the try and Vale clung on through six dramatic minutes of injury time.

It was real Rourke's Drift stuff at the end, with Kati Tuipulotu sin-binned for killing the ball, Vale were down to fourteen men as Pontypridd held siege on the visitors line with wave after wave of attacks.

To give some context, this was only Pontypridd's third defeat of their season, and Vale were magnificent.

There had been precious little to separate the two sides for about an hour as Vale coach Mike Ruddock saw his pre-match plan executed.

Vale's pack had been told to stop Pontypridd from driving to prevent them winning penalties within range of full-back Brett Davey's boot.

And Davey landed only two out of five kicks all afternoon.

It was 3-3 at half-time as Davey and Shelbourne swapped kicks and the belief started to grow in the Vale ranks especially as Pontypridd took far too many wrong options.

The hosts made 15 handling errors in a generally poor game, compared to Vale's eight, and on at least four occasions their hands let them down with the try line at their mercy and the Ebbw defence at full stretch.

Davey's penalty made it 6-3 ahead for the first time in the match at the hour stage and you could sense the Pontypridd players relax feeling victory was just round the corner.

But it was never to arrive.

Vale's Richard Davies put wing Bevan away and the scrum-half, who is playing out of position, showed his pace and nearly made the line himself.

Pontypridd were penalised and from the resulting line-out, won with yet another mighty leap from Edwards, Mitchell squeezed his way through defenders to crash over as he just held onto the ball.

Ponty fans will swear it wasn't a try - Ebbw fans will swear it was.

Either way, Shelbourne landed the conversion making it 10-6 to Ebbw Vale with time running out.

The home side had their chances, Edwards and Shelbourne had to sneak possession from under Pontypridd's noses and the scenes were of utter jubilation when the final whistle filled the crisp evening air.

Pontypridd: B Davey, G Wyatt, S Parker, J Lewis, E Lewis, C Sweeney, G Baber (c), G Jenkins, M Rees, D Bell, D McIntosh (rep M Owen 52 mins), B Cockbain, N Kelly (rep R Parks 53 mins), G Lewis, K Jones. Scorers: - pens: Davey (2)

Ebbw Vale: R Davies, A Takarangi, R Shorney, E Binham, A Bevan, S Mitchell, B Shelbourne, A Black, L Phillips, M Jones, P Sidoli (rep O Booyse 66 mins), N Edwards, C Billen, K Tuipulotu, T Morris (rep P Williams 57 mins). Scorers: try: Mitchell, con: Shelbourne, pen: Shelbourne