Llandovery rugby fans will be having plenty to watch this Saturday with the town hosting both the Llandovery College – Christ College, Brecon game and the Drovers clash with Pontypridd in the Indigo Premiership writes Huw S Thomas.
The Llandovery College v Christ College game (KO 11 30 am) is back for the first time since 2012 with the two famous rugby playing schools resuming battle on Tredegar Close at after a hiatus of 11 years.
The fixture that started as far back as 1879, two years before the formation of the Welsh Rugby Union, was last played in 2012 but was stopped at the request of Christ College, Brecon who had begun to suffer regular defeat at the hands of their old public school rivals.
After talks between the headmasters Gareth Pearson (Christ College) and Dominic Findlay (Llandovery) as well as the Head of Sport at Brecon John Patterson and Master in Charge of rugby at Llandovery Nathan Thomas, the two schools have determined to resume the fixture.
In latter years, Christ College has begun to develop close bonds with the Cardiff Blues, aimed at developing rugby talent and this has been instrumental in seeing the standard of rugby improve.
The probability is that the gap in standards has narrowed considerably so that both parties now acknowledge that the famous old fixture should return.
That is confirmed by the fact that Christ College have beaten Millfield 29-12 this season whereas Llandovery lost to the Somerset school 33-19.
At nearby Church Bank, it is a very important day for the Drovers who need to beat Pontypridd to hang on to the second position in the Premiership table.
Llandovery are hoping that lock and skipper Jack Jones will return after injury forced him to miss the Ebbw Vale game.
Interestingly, Jones was in the same 2009 Llandovery College side as George North in the 15-0 win over Christ College.
The Drovers had a fine 23-12 away win at Sardis Road a few weeks ago but coach Euros Evans will be aware that Ponty won at Aberavon in their last league game
The fight for a top four finish looks likely to go to the wire with any one of seven clubs – Cardiff, Llandovery, Aberavon, Ebbw Vale, Merthyr, RGC and Newport – with a chance to finish in the play off positions.
The top two in the table will have home advantage over third and fourth in the semi – finals so there is huge incentive to finish first or second , come the end of April.
The Drovers were far from their fluent selves in their last game but still pipped Ebbw Vale 20-15.
They let slip a bonus point by scoring just the three tries and allowed the Steelmen to grab a a losing bonus point with a late 10 point spurt.
Ponty will be unpredictable and dangerous opponents despite the absence of fly half Bob Burnell, son of coach Justin, who has just recently moved to English Championship side Jersey Reds.