Llandovery have confirmed that they will be restarting a youth team as from the start of the 2026-2027 season writes Huw S Thomas
After a hiatus of seven seasons, the Super Rygbi Cymru oufit will be fielding a team full of last year’s successful U16 side that were regional champions at their age group.
“It is great news for Llandovery ”said President Handel Davies. the present Mayor of the Carmarthenshire market town
“We are conscious that providing competitive rugby for teenagers is an important part of our remit as a club and community.”
“We greatly look forward to the re-appearance of Youth side after all the groundwork done by our Junior Drovers coaches.”
When the World Health Organization declared the covid outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020 and assessed it as having become a pandemic on 11 March, rugby in Llandovery and elsewhere Wales came to a halt.
Before the game re-started three years later, the WRU had changed age qualification for youth rugby from under 19 on September 1 to under 18 on September 1
The loss of Ysgol Pantycelyn to educational reorganisation in the Tywi Valley in 2013 and the establishment of Ysgol Bro Dinefwr in Llandeilo were other factors to hit hard on the provision of youth rugby at Church Bank.
Come the end of covid, Llandeilo were quicker off the mark in getting their youth side going again with a number of talented Junior Drovers joining their Bro Dinefewr school chums in the side.
Luckily for Llandovery the Junior Drovers set up at the club continued to provide regular Sunday morning rugby for all age groups from Under 6 upwards
The hard work of a group of parents cum rugby coaches under Dylan Jones ensured that a hundred or more young boys and girls learned the basics of the game.
Former flanker Huw Protheroe, alongside other ex Drovers in Gary Williams and Glyn Davies plus Builth’s Rob Lloyd – all with sons in the squad – have dedicated the last 10 years to bringing along a group of talented players.
Proof of the fruits of their labours came this year when the U16s won both the Carmarthenshire U16 Cup and the Scarlets U16 Cup under the captaincy of No 8 Will Jones.
And it is now this side that will represent Llandovery in the WRU youth leagues.
In past years, Llandovery Youth – formed in the 1970s through the pioneering work of Bernard Jones and Dafi George Davies – went on to produce a number of Welsh youth caps.
Barry Williams –a Wales and Lions hooker of the future – was the outstanding Welsh Youth player of the 1990s, gaining a remarkable 10 caps over a period of three years.
Others to be capped at youth level were Matthew Allnut, Dorian Williams and Luke Charteris but – more importantly – the ground was laid for future Llandovery success.
The youth sides of the late seventies and early eighties were full of teenagers who went on to form the nucleus of a squad that got Llandovery into the Heineken Leagues in 1990.
To see the Youth side return will bring joy to local rugby fans, starved of regular Saturday afternoon fixtures for some years since the collapse of both second fifteen and youth fifteen sides.
There is the hope, too, that the establishment of the youth side will be the impetus for the re-formation of the 2nd XV and a further strengthening of rugby at large in the upper reaches of the Tywi Valley
*** An opening training session for any local teenagers keen to join the current squad will take place on Llandovery’s excellent 3G pitch on Thursday June 25th at 7 pm.
All will receive a warm welcome at the home of the Super Rygbi Cymru champions.
PHOTO OF THE LLANDOVERY U16 SQUAD THAT WON BOTH CARMARTHENSHIRE U16 AND SCARLETS REGION U16 CUPS