London Skolars made a strong start to the group stages of the Northern Rail Cup, scoring 10 tries at The Gnoll in Neath. They raced into a dominant position with three tries in eleven minutes. After Erjon Dolapi had made a 50 metre run from deep in his own half, fellow prop forward Rob Thomas took the ball from dummy half to force his way over the tryline.
Whilst Scorpion’s Kristian Hawkes was in the sin-bin, James Anthony latched onto an Oscar Thomas pass to score the second, and then set up a try for Dylan Skee. Oscar Thomas scored on his debut and Smokie Junor dived over in the corner to put Skolars further ahead
The Scorpions had several chances to score, but the final pass went to ground on three occasions as Skolars put the attack under pressure. Anthony added a second try just before half-time after an 80 metre break from Joe Price had opened up the defence.
The second half saw the home side defend well early on, but they couldn’t stop Dylan Skee’s break and he offloaded for David Stephenson to touch down. Skee was instumental in the next try as he slipped a pass out for Anthony to record a hat-trick.
South Wales finally got onto the scoreboard just before the hour mark through Olly Olds, but the respite was shortlived. Anthony might have scored a fourth try, but as the defence closed in, he made sure of a try by passing inside to Stephenson. Skee kicked his seventh conversion to record 18 points in the game.
Skolars were held up twice in the same set of six tackles before Jack Dillon made that pressure count for the tenth try.
Scorpions rounded off the scoring through Joe Burke after Mike Worrincy had been sin-binned after a melee, but, with their next two game at home, Skolars will be confident of progressing to the knock-out stages of the competition.
SOUTH WALES
1 David James
2 Jack Pring
3 Lewis Reece
4 Shane Lyon-Fraser
5 Dalton Grant
6 Kristian Hawkes
7 Ollie Olds
8 Joe Burke
9 Steve Parry
10 James Greenwood
11 Rhodri Lloyd
12 Haydn Peacock
15 Ashley Bateman
Subs (all used)
14 Chris Vitalini
13 Chirs Tuluila
16 Sam Wellings
17 Liam Carberry
Tries: Olds (57), Burke (80)
Goals: Olds 2/2
Sin-bin: Hawkes – holding down (8), Tuluila – shoulder charge (63)
LONDON SKOLARS
1 James Anthony
4 John Paxton
– Alex Hurst
3 Joe Price
2 Smokie Junor
– Oscar Thomas
7 Dylan Skee
– Erjon Dolapi
9 Martyn Smith
8 Rob Thomas
11 David Stephenson
12 Mike Worrincy
19 James Roche
Subs (all used)
13 Olly Purslow
23 Jack Dillon
16 Louis Robinson
17 Danny Burke
Tries: R Thomas (3), Anthony (8,32,55), Skee (11), O Thomas (18), Junor (24), Stephenson (52,67), Dillon (71)
Goals: Skee 7/10
Sin-bin: Worrincy – fighting (79)
Penalty count: 9-12
Half-time: 0-32
Referee: Tom Crashley
SCORING SEQUENCE: 0-6, 0-12, 0-18, 0-22, 0-28, 0-32, 0-38, 0-44, 6-44, 6-50, 6-54, 12-54
