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The retiring Bezani plays down emotion

Pontypridd pursue calmness in today's Swalec Cup final. Tim Glover reports

Tim Glover
Friday 03 May 1996 23:02 BST
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The bookmakers are unable to separate Pontypridd and Neath for the Swalec Cup final at Cardiff Arms Park today but if emotion was a factor then Nigel Bezani's team would be clear favourites. Bezani retires at the end of the season at the age of 39 and despite captaining one of the most consistently successful sides in Wales his cupboard is bare.

Pontypridd have appeared in two finals and lost them both, to Bridgend in 1979 and to Swansea last year when they also finished runners-up in the league. Bezani, whose nine-year-old daughter Lucy will accompany him as the club's "official mascot" when he leads out the team, said: "This match is not about a fond farewell for Nigel Bezani because there is no room for sentiment in a cup final. Instead it is all about our players going back to the Arms Park to prove that we are no longer an unfashionable club and that we deserve a place among the elite."

Twelve months ago Pontypridd stayed in a Cardiff hotel prior to the final, which they lost 17-12, and Bezani admits it was a mistake. "We became more and more wound up and all it did was to add to the nervous tension." Pontypridd suffered from stage fright and Neil Jenkins missed a string of penalties.

This season Jenkins has scored 88 points in four cup games and if the final was to be decided on goal-kicking, the form of the Wales outside- half gives Pontypridd an edge. Although Patrick Horgan, the Neath scrum- half, landed a match-winning penalty against Newport in the semi-final, he is not regarded as a specialist kicker. But then the Neath style has very little to do with kicking, and all to do with moving the ball at pace.

Paul John, Horgan's opposite number, believes Jenkins is playing the best rugby of his career. "Everyone knows he is a superb goal-kicker but he has not had the credit he deserves for leading the line.

"We know we have played some excellent rugby in the last five years without winning anything but that does not increase the pressure on us. Last year we froze. That won't happen again. We are older and wiser."

They are certainly older than Neath who have the youngest back line ever to appear in a final. Darryl Jones, a teacher at Neath College, has eight of his former pupils in a team capable of playing breathtaking rugby.

Jones, though, is resigned to running what amounts to a finishing school and the final will be the swan-song for the Llewellyn brothers, Gareth and Glyn, who are joining Harlequins and Wasps. "We have a development programme that ensures that any losses will be limited," Jones said. "If a player has a good offer we won't stand in his way although we would make sure he went for the right reasons."

Neath were the first club to win the Cup, in 1972, and they have never met Pontypridd in the competition. "I don't think either team can be optimistic," Jones said. "We can win the Cup if we perform as we are capable but I imagine Pontypridd feel exactly the same."

NEATH v PONTYPRIDD

at Cardiff Arms Park

Richard Jones 15 C Cormack

C Higgs 14 D Manley

L Davies 13 J Lewis

J Funnell 12 S Lewis

G Evans 11 G Lewis

P Williams 10 N Jenkins

P Horgan 9 Paul John

D Morris 1 N Bezani capt

B Williams 2 Phil John

J Davies 3 N Eynon

Glyn Llewellyn 4 G Prosser

Gareth Llewellyn capt 5 M Rowley

Robin Jones 6 M Lloyd

S Williams 8 D McIntosh

I Boobyer 7 R Williams

Referee: D Bevan (Clydach). Kick-off: 3.0 (BBC Wales)

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