CAPITAL SHOW BY CARDIFF

London Welsh 15

Cardiff 64

THIS is the weekend that all London Welshmen live for.

There was a festival atmosphere at Old Deer Park before kick-off. The sun shone brightly, there was a massive marquee to house supporters who hadn't been able to get tickets to the big match at Twickenham, and there were internationals past and present as far as the eye could see.

Unfortunately for London Welsh, eight of them were playing for Cardiff and none of them for the home side.

The eight soon made their presence felt and it rapidly became obvious that Cardiff were going to rattle up a huge score.

It took the visitors 10 minutes to open their account through flanker Darren Davies. But then Welsh had their most impressive spell of the match, hit back and were briefly back in contention when Craig Raymond stroked over a penalty.

This setback appeared to stir Cardiff into action - particularly Mike Hall, who minutes later was exchanging punches with anyone who cared to go near him.

Special

The goodwill soon returned as the visitors piled up the points. Proof that this was a special day indeed was provided by prop Phil Booth, who ran in a hat-trick of tries.

Further proof, if further proof were needed, that there really was something special in the air came at half-time when the club announcer halted proceedings with a strange broadcast.

He informed spectators that a Mr Rani from Romania was in the stand. He was looking for a certain Mr Godwin from Cardiff - who had a spare ticket for the match.

Suddenly the stands were full of Welshmen speaking with Romanian accents and claiming to be Mr Rani!

Welsh rallied at the end to score a couple of tries, but Cardiff finished the scoring with a Nigel Walker try five minutes before the end - setting things up nicely for the afternoon's entertainment at Twickers.

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