Well, the cup kings are back at the Millenium. Yesterday, we beat Cardiff in the Swalec Cup Semi Final by 46 – 25 to secure a place in the final against fellow regionalists Carmarthen Quins – An all West Wales FINAL.

On a warm day at St Helens all the ingredients were there for an exciting semi and that’s how it turned out, with no less than nine tries being scored. Cardiff opened up an early 6pt advantage with two penalty goals by Gareth Davies, but on seventeen minutes prop Shaun Hopkins bundled over the line from a lineout drive to score the first of six Llanelli tries. Outside Half Steve Shingler certainly had his kicking boots on, and slotted the conversion in what turned out to 7 successes from eight attempts. The second quarter saw Llanelli dominate possession and saw their lead extended to 27 – 6 by half time with tries by Aaron Shingler and scrum half Gareth Davies both of which were converted by Steve, he also added two penalties. Just before the half ended Aaron was yellow carded for a deliberate knock on, which was going to make the early stages of the second half very interesting.

Whilst still down to fourteen, it was Llanelli how scored first in the second half, this time No8 Ben Morgan, playing his first game back following a hamstring injury bulldozed his way over to extend the lead further. Cardiff were not about to lie down and came back into the game with a couple of tries from wing threequarter Nathan Rees. On 70mins, Llanelli replacement hooker Rhys Lawrence was yellow carded for slowing the ball down at the ruck which resulted in Cardiff applying terrific pressure in the final minutes to close the gap between the sides. On 80mins, the pressure told and outside half Gareth Davies crossed between the posts to narrow the gap to 34 – 25. With something like 7 mins injury time left, it was game on. Then on 82mins, and with a four on one overlap, the curse of Welsh rugby struck – centre Nick Reynolds intercepted the long miss pass thrown by the Cardiff Outside half to run in unopposed for Llanelli’s fifth try to secure the win. One more try was added by Nick in the final minute to complete the scoring and send the Semi-Pro’s back to Millenium Stadium on Grand Finals day on Saturday May 8^th.