Barry RFC's tough start to the Admiral League season continued with a curtailed 44-3 defeat at Abercwmboi in Division One East Central.
This game was brought to a halt after 65 minutes following a potentially serious neck injury to Rhys Forse, the Barry No 8 who needed lengthy treatment on the pitch before being helped off.
Following a ruck deep in the Abercwmboi half, Forse stayed prone on the ground and needed prolonged, careful treatment from the club’s physios.
After being advised an ambulance would take much more than an hour to reach the Cardiff Road ground, a specialist was contacted who was able to give treatment advice.
"Rhys is sore, but hopefully he’ll be fine. He’s tough." said head coach Mike Morgan. "Tremendous work by the physios Jo and Joe (Evans and Gatt) looking after him."
But on the match itself, with Abercwmboi comfortably ahead when it ended, Morgan was suitably blunt: "We didn’t get off the bus. Our heads were not in the game, and we got punished for it. As a squad, we weren’t there today, and that’s something we have to fix immediately."
Abercwmboi totally dominated the first half and had run in four of their five tries before the interval. Faster and sharper than Barry, the hosts made the most of the space granted by some poor defending and tackling to put the match beyond reach.
Morgan Prosser’s 28th-minute penalty had briefly cut Abercwmboi’s lead to 13 points, and although the Bombers improved in the shortened second half, they rarely looked like making the margin of defeat respectable.
“We have a squad that is more than capable of beating teams like Abercwmboi,” said Morgan. “Having the game plan, having the skillset and the ability means nothing if you don’t have the attitude. If it’s a skill error, that’s on the coaches to fix. If it’s an effort error, that’s on the player."
“What I saw today, and what others saw today was a lot of effort errors. If you come to a place like Abercwmboi and all 20 players are not dialled in, a team like Abercwmboi will punish you. They were up for it, and we weren’t.”
Morgan offered no excuses, once again pointing to the mindset of some of the players: "In two games this season, we didn’t have the mindset and came off with a heavy defeat."
But his criticism did not include every player: "Some tried harder to make up for the lack of effort of others, and that’s when you get injuries because they push too hard."
Barry host Cambrian Welfare at the Reservoir Field on Saturday, and according to Morgan, the visitors "will look at this scoreline and think it’s an easy five points. We’ve made things unnecessarily hard for ourselves."
Abercwmboi scorers:
Tries: Stefan Geary 2, Owen Jenkins, Fou Loau, Mason Wiliams
Penalties: Aaron Boitho 3, conversions - Bolitho 5
Back-to-back defeats for Barry
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