Category Archives: Ebbw Vale Rugby

Ebbw Vale travel to Carmarthen on Saturday for the 1st round of the National Cup.

The squad can be seen here.

Following Saturday’s 14-all draw at Aberavon, Ebbw won 37-18 with a bonus point at Bedwas on Boxing Day.

More information can be found  here.

The club shop will be open on Thursday evening, December 20th, between 6 and 8 pm, so you can buy those last minute bits of Ebbw regalia, without which, Christmas simply won’t be Christmas.

Update: here are details of Colin’s funeral.
Wednesday, December 19th, 1:45pm at St Paul’s Church, Cwm, followed by cremation at Llwydcoed, Aberdare at 3pm.
This will be followed by return to Ebbw Vale Rugby Club.

From Chairman Jon Jones
It is with great sadness that in the last 24 hours we have learned of the sudden and unexpected death of current committee man Colin Brennan.

Colin had a long association with the Steelmen, firstly as a supporter and in numerous roles within the club that included spells as Fixture Secretary, Team Manager, Director and he was also a driving force in establishing a Youth and then U21 team that saw him bring many players to the club who went on to perform with great distinction, among them Mathew “Chunky” Williams, Jason Strange and Andrew Bevan. Over the last few seasons Colin has been a great support to the officials at the club, willing to help out at all times and sharing his rugby experience for the better of the Steelmen. One of the last major tasks that Colin took on was the funding, sourcing and fitting of our new scoreboard and this he did as always with professionalism and without any fuss.

Colin also took on roles at Pontypool, Caerphilly and Rhiwbina RFC in partnership with coach and close friend Gareth Lintern as well as serving as a Team Manager within the Dragons Age Group system.

He will be greatly missed by all at Ebbw Vale RFC and at those other clubs he served with distinction.

Our sincere condolences go out to Colin’s family at this extremely sad time.

There will be a minute’s silence in Colins’s memory at our home fixture this Saturday when we play Cardiff RFC.

Details of the funeral arrangements will be published in due course.

Those supporters who are followers of social media will have seen that, as well as being first to the breakdown, our captain Ronny Kynes is equally sharp with news on Twitter! The medical team has confirmed the seriousness of Ronny’s foot injury, sustained in the latter part of Friday’s victory, with broken bones and ligament damage requiring an operation that ends Ronny’s on field contribution for 2018/19. He will undergo an operation on Wednesday 28th with our club Doctor, Rhys Thomas, and we as a club are grateful to Dr Rhys for the swiftness of the operation and the use of his undoubted sports injury surgical skills. Ronny will continue to play an active part off the field in driving the spirit and ethos of the club.

Head Coach Greg Woods has moved just as sharply to plug the back row gap in the squad and has signed open side Lloyd Evans a product of the Ospreys Academy who has extensive Premiership experiences with the clubs in that region. Observant supporters will have noted his excellent performance for Neath in the fixture earlier this season. He has also gained a wealth of experience with the Welsh 7’s squad, taking part in a significant number of the World Series 7’s tournaments. Lloyd will be with the Steelmen until the end of the season and will add to an extremely competitive and high quality back row roster.

On the prop front, the club can also confirm the completion of the transfer of former Dragons academy and Tredegar born loose head Luke Garrett to the club from Neath. Luke made his debut for the Steelmen as a 17 year old in a league fixture at Beddau and is well known by Head Coach Greg Woods due to his many games for Cross Keys whilst in the Academy and a squad member at the Dragons.

Young prop Jordan Rogers, who can play both sides of the scrum, has decided to make his dual registration with Risca a full time switch as he looks to maximise his training and game time at a lower level to develop his game. We thank him for his loyalty as a squad member and wish him success at Risca where his progress will continue to be monitored.

Centre Dom Franchi is still 2 to 3 weeks away from a return with the ankle injury sustained at the end of the Pontypridd game taking longer than expected to heal. Dom continues to work hard under the supervision of the medical team to ensure a timely and successful return to the field.

There will be some alterations to Ebbw’s matches around Christmas and into the new year.

We travel to Aberavon on Saturday, 22nd for a 2:30 kick off and then play ar Bedwas on Boxing Day, Wednesday 26th. This will be televised but we don’t yet have a confirmed kick off time.

Keep an eye out for travel arrangements on the Ebbw Addicts page and twitter feed.

The home game with RGC, originally set for January 12th, will now kick off at 7:10pm on Friday, January 11th and be shown live on BBC2 Wales.

The attritional nature of the Premiership is now beginning to affect the Ebbw Vale squad and all Ebbw supporters should bear this in mind when looking at chosen squads.

First the good news…
Carl Meyer has recovered from the hamstring strain and will be fit for selection this Friday.
Jonathan Davies has recovered from the shoulder injury sustained at the end of last season and, following a few comeback games with Ynsddu, is now available for selection.
Toby Fricker has recovered from the strains and knocks following the Merthyr game and will be available for selection this Friday; he has, however, requested that he doesn’t have to play in the back row!
James Lewis is also available for selection following recovery from a virus.

The less than good news…
Dom Franchi after sustaining an ankle injury in the final minutes of the Pontypridd game is 1/2 weeks away from being available for selection.
Joel Harries who sustained an ankle injury in the warm up for the Merthyr game has had an operation under the capable scalpel of Dr Rhys Thomas  this week and his expected return is 12 weeks. This is particularly disappointing for young Joel who has performed extremely strongly in the first 8 games of the season.
Cameron Reagan sustained a head injury just prior to half time in the attritional Merthyr game and will be available for selection after this week.
Lance Randall suffered a bicep injury in the Merthyr game. Lance is awaiting a medical review which will be completed this week and is facing a 12 to 20 week lay off depending on medical opinion of the correct course of action for the injury sustained.
Ashley Sweet is still 1/2 weeks away from being fit for selection following the rib injury sustained in the Cross Keys game.
Rhys Clarke having suffered rib injures in successive game is 1/ 2 weeks away from being able to return.

Ebbw Sign Canadian International Paul Ciulini
With a serious current  injury crisis in the second row, the Steelmen have  signed Canadian International lock, Paul Cuilini, following discussions with Steelmen favourite and current Canadian National Coach, Kingsley Jones. Canada will be playing in a World Cup play off in France in the next few weeks and Paul, who has 8 caps to his name, was unlucky not to make the cut for the squad. Kingsley was keen to have him close at hand and battle hardened in case of injury and Paul will be with us for the next few games. The 23 year old, 6ft 5” and 20st second row is a timely arrival and trained with the squad on Tuesday evening in the rain and high winds as a welcome to Blaenau Gwent.
Coach Greg Woods and Chairman Jon Jones would like to take the opportunity to thank Kingsley, the Canadian RFU and its staff for agreeing the move and acting with speed and diligence to make Paul available for selection.

As well as refereeing Friday night’s gargantuan, top-of-the-table clash between Ebbw and Merthyr, Nigel Owens managed to fit in another appointment. At half time, and much to the delight of the young players, he took charge of a demonstration match involving Ebbw Vale Steelers Under 7s/8s.

Many thanks to Mr Owens for doing this, and for not minding having to hurry off for his half time cuppa! In a tweet on Saturday morning, Nigel said, “Well done both @evrfc and @RFCMerthyr for playing a good hard game last night. Really enjoyed reffing it BUT am sorry lads, the highlight of the night for me was refereeing the U7s tag match at half time. Well done all involved.”

Legend.

Following Saturday’s humdinger at Pontypridd, focus switches to Friday night and the visit of Merthyr, one place and two points above Ebbw at the top of the Principality Premiership.

It’s live on TV but you’ll really want to be there in person!

It was with a great deal of sadness that we learned of the death of Will Skyrme, a fine prop forward who joined  us in 1973 from Gwernyfed RFC – one of many great Breconshire players to have done so over the years.
Will played in the red, green and white of Ebbw Vale for six years and, in that time, propped against some of the best in Britain. He was devoted to Gwernyfed, a club with a very strong connection with Ebbw Vale. We send our condolences to Will’s family and friends, and to everyone at Gwernyfed RFC.

The funeral service will take place this Friday at 1pm at Llanfilo Church, in the village of Llanfilo, Brecon, Powys LD3 0RD.

The comeback kings went top of the league with another resurrection special at the Gnoll on Saturday.

You can read about it in Welsh and English here.

BBC Wales Scrum V has spent the week catching up with some well known Steelmen. You can watch the features they’ve done on Ronny Kynes here (with a wonderful supporting Cameo performance), and Ashley Sweet, here.

Young outside half Callum Hall, after a season with the Steelmen, has agreed, after discussion with Greg Woods and the coaching team, to leave in search of regular first team rugby. As befits a player of his quality, he has already found a club and has signed for Premiership rivals Neath. During his time at the club, Callum has displayed great qualities as a rugby player and a supportive squad member and all at the club wish him all the best for the future.

After originally seeing service at the 1992 Ebbw Vale Garden Festival, the scoreboard at Eugene Cross Park has retired, much to the relief of Life Member and Scoreboard Operator Alan Morgan, who was the only person capable of coaxing the ageing electronics into life!

The new scoreboard has a clock feature to assist in the Ebbw Addicts’ panic as we defend or chase a victory. This improvement owes much to Colin Brennan and Alan Morgan who collected donations and sourced and arranged instalment of the much needed piece of equipment. We are also extremely grateful to the following for the their kind donations

Alan Morgan, Alan Edwards, Roy Lewis, Steve Drake, Jeff Palmer, Jill Lines, Glyn Biston, David Sevenoaks, M & M Medical, Aspect Environmental, Steven George Architects, Comtec Ltd, Steve Young and Colin Brennan.

Everybody at Ebbw Vale Rugby Club was saddened to learn of the death of Doctor Gordon Thomas on Sunday.

Ian James, Club Secretary, writes:

We were deeply sorry to learn that one of our greatest players, Graham Evans, known as Gomer, passed away on Friday morning. In the 1970s, he was a backrow forward of exceptional ability, who played many times for us and also for Gwent v the All Blacks in 1972.

Club Historian Roy Lewis said, “Gomer was the nicest of men. Everyone who knew him, played with him or saw him play will be very sad to hear of his death.”

Our deepest condolence go to his nearest and dearest.

Funeral arrangements

Monday 10 September at 1130, Wesleyan Methodist Church, Nantyglo followed by interment ar Brynmawr Cemetery.

Unveiling the new season’s Steelmen kits, Chairman Jon Jones said, “Ebbw Vale RFC are delighted to continue their partnership with UK based kit manufacturer Akuma and I’m sure the supporters will enjoy wearing the new design kit in what will be an exciting season. The change kit for 2018/19 is an exact replica of the Ebbw Fawr Learning Community 1st team kit, and continues the club’s support of its local school.”

Here is the Steelmen 23 for Saturday afternoon’s match at Brixham RFC:

Any supporters interested in watching the Bedford v Saracens match that kicks off at 3pm on the same day and ground where we will play Ampthill at 5pm, should contact Andrew Phillips ASAP on 07766490358 or ebbwaddicts@yahoo.com.