Magor RFC

Recap

Saturday 13 September 2025 K.O.14:30

The Glebelands, Newport.

St. Julian’s HSOB RFC 28 – 10 Magor RFC

Our 2025/2026 Division 6 East season kicked off with a bit of a local derby, just a couple of junctions down the M4 to the Glebelands to face St. Julian’s. Many at Magor have past connections to St.Julians and the match up was keenly anticipated.

The day didn’t start so well with Lee Cox and Rhys Delap having to pull out of the squad at the last minute with illness and personal reasons respectively. 

St. Julian’s, having kicked off, opened the scoring despite some early Magor pressure. Two Magor scrums in the St. Julian’s 22 saw them going backwards and the second one resulted in a penalty which was kicked to touch. The Magor lineout was pinched by the home side though and from a follow on ruck, the referee’s whistle went off in favour of St. Julian’s allowing them to clear. The kick didn’t find touch though and was gathered by Aaron Boardman on the right wing. Aaron fed Iestyn Rollings who floated what looked like a perfectly flat pass across midfield to Captain Ross Speirs with the Magor backline in full flow but the referee decided that the pass had gone forward and stopped the game for a scrum. Again the Magor 8 exerted a lot of pressure on the St. Julian’s pack, pushing them backwards but they retained possession and, through a penalty kick, eventually sent a long touch finder down into the Magor 22. The throw was not straight though and it looked like the visitors would be able to exit through the continued dominance in the scrum. This was indeed the case except that, again the referee saw an offence in the Magor backline of crossing. From the resulting penalty the home side were able to probe the Magor defence, first on the right then back towards the posts until they found a way through under the posts making the conversion straightforward.

Magor pressed again, another scrum penalty gaining some ground and a fantastic jackal from makeshift number 8 and league debutant for Magor, Will Jones, gave the boys yet another penalty. Magor on the front foot but yet again, what looked like perfect darts from Josh Buffrey to Andy Gully was judged to be not straight and again the momentum switched to St. Julian’s who managed to take the ball upfield until a high tackle gave them the opportunity of three more points. Unfortunately for them the penalty attempt went wide and unfortunately for Magor the St. Julian’s right wing caught the drop out and scythed through the Magor defence to score under the posts with the conversion again successful.

The next notable event involved a bit of a reshuffle in the Magor lineup. Also making his league debut for Magor, wing James Clement, who had performed well in both attack and defence was faced with a one on one as the St. Julian’s winger broke out. James held firm and stopped his opponent but suffered a shoulder injury which ended his day. James was replaced by Chris Stephens who went to number 8 allowing Will Jones to move back to his more familiar centre position and Niall Roberts moving to the wing.

The first half was not pointless for Magor though. More solid scrummaging gave Magor good possession, scrum half Jason King feeding possession to Iestyn Rollings who punted upfield to drop the ball in space on Magor’s right. The home full back gathered the ball but pressure from Ross Speirs bundled him firmly into touch which he took umbridge with and fired the ball down onto Ross on the floor giving the referee no choice but to dole out a stern talking to and a Magor penalty which Ross slotted over with ease. This is how the half ended with the home side 14 – 3 up.

The second half could have started as the first half ended scoring wise. A lineout on halfway was gathered by Joel Palmizi and was driven on by Andy Gully and the rest of the Magor pack before coming out for Danny Hodges to punch a hole in the defence and from the ruck a penalty came Magor’s way. Iestyn took a quick tap and managed to add 10m to the territorial gain thanks to the defence not being back 10m. This gave Ross another kickable penalty but unfortunately it drifted to the right.

The home team then suffered from some indiscipline and, what started as a yellow card for their number 12, turned to red after he told the referee what he thought of his decision.

More Magor pressure ensued, Will Jones getting agonisingly close but held up on the line by a stern defence. A clearance penalty from the home side was skillfully juggled by Niall Roberts now on the left wing and kept in play the ball eventually getting to Simon Reece and the defenders not releasing gave Magor another penalty. The stoppage brought up another Magor league debut for Sam Doddridge at Hooker, replacing Josh Buffrey. The resulting kick was kept in by the defending full back but the clearance resulted in yet more Magor pressure. The ball came out from a scrum on the home side’s 10m line and Iestyn Rollings chipped the ball into space in front of the defending fullback. Strong pressure from Morgan Davies and Ross Speirs resulted in the ball being picked up by Ross and he bulldozed his way over for the try showing great strength and determination. Ross converted his own try to bring the scores to 14 – 10 to the home side.

It seemed like the momentum had well and truly shifted in our direction with St. Julian’s kicking the restart into touch on the full. Even at this late stage in the game the scrum was still working well with special shout outs to props Iwan White and Jaden Quinn who both played the full 80 minutes not taking a backward step. Again Iestyn elected to kick with a stunning 50-22 putting Magor right back on the front foot. The line out was loose and the defenders hacked ahead, Iestyn gathered and looked to attack again but Magor were yet again penalised for what, on reviewing the video footage, looked like a very marginal decision for pulling back a player. These fine margins only served to give the home side confidence and they took back control of the game with a third try from a chip over the defence by the left wing which dropped tantalisingly over the tryline. It looked like Iestyn Rollings had won the race to dap the ball down but the referee judged that it was actually a St. Julian’s hand that got there first. The try was again converted making the score, 21 – 10 to the home team and forcing Magor to chase the game with time running out.

As is often the case when the losing side is running out of time and chasing the game, it plays into the hands of the team in front and, despite only having fourteen men, St. Julians were able to create an overlap and scored a bonus point try at the death, also converted to make the final score St. Julian’s HSBO 28 – 10 Magor. Fine margins can be the difference between success and failure and this was surely the case for the Magor boys today. Ross Speirs had a superb game as captain, scoring all of the Magor points and could easily have been chosen as man of the match but the opposition thought that Will Jones deserved the man of the match accolade with Magor awarding the St. Julian’s number 8 the same prize. A shout out should also go to Ben Hamspon who took to the field several times to cover injuries.

Finally we would like to give another shout out to West Mon player Rhys Hall who, after West Mon were unable to field a side, went looking for a game. We were happy to oblige after our late dropouts but unfortunately, Rhys pulled his thigh muscle in the warm up and didn’t feature. Thanks Rhys and we at Magor RFC hope that West Mon can overcome what hopefully is only a temporary difficulty.

Magor: Morgan Davies, James Clement, Ross Speirs (Captain), Niall Roberts, Iestyn Rollings, Jason King, Will Jones, Joel Palmizi, Simon Reece, Danny Hodges, Andy Gully, Jaden Quinn, Josh Bufferey, Iwan White

Replacements: Chris Stephens, Sam Doddridge, Ben Hampson, Conner Bergstrom, Rhys Hall (not used)

Magor Scorers: Tries – Ross Speirs, Conversion – Ross Speirs, Penalty – Ross Speirs

St. Julian’s: Tries – 4, Conversions – 4

Referee: Huw Morgan

Attendance: Meh, about 60?