East round-up: Keeping is star for Mountain Ash

Jan 28 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

DALE KEEPING grabbed a brace of tries as Mountain Ash leapfrogged Abercynon and Ystrad Rhondda into second place in Division Two East with a 26-5 victory at Llanishen.

Captain Scott Davies led the way for the visitors with the opening score, while Keeping’s double and a further effort from scrum-half Meirion Thomas secured the bonus point for the Old Firm club.

They could not close the gap on Penallta, though, who recorded a convincing 44-15 bonus-point victory of their own at Pill Harriers.

The leaders went over for seven tries in the rout with scores from Matthew Tucker, Devlin Morgan and Karl Rees being followed up by further efforts from Kieron Mahoney, Sean Powell, Steve Richards and Andrew Jenkins.

Abercynon lost ground in the title race after going down 19-16 at Treherbert, while Newport HSOB shared eight tries with Rhydyfelin only to lose out 28-22.

Full-back David Grattan was the difference between the sides as he kicked two penalties and a conversion to add to an earlier try, giving him a match haul of 13 points.

In Division Three East, Senghenydd recorded their first win of the season as replacement outside-half Robert Anderson notched a penalty with the last kick of the game to beat Pontypool United 8-6. Man-of-the-match prop Robert Channon also scored a try.