GET TO KNOW CHRIS BANFIELD

The 30 year-old full-back hails from Loughor, Swansea. Banfield is a qualified Physical Education teacher currently teaching at Cefn Saeson School in Neath Port Talbot.

His first appearance for Aberavon was against RGC in 2017 scoring a try on debut, he has gone on to play 72 times for the club.

To date, Chris has played a considerable amount of rugby starting in six games playing the full 80 minutes in each game. He begun on the bench against Swansea last Saturday only to enter the field of play 20 minutes into the game replacing Joe Gage.

‘Banf’ reflected on his recent performances:

“In general, I feel my all round performances have been solid. All of my playing time has come on the wing so developing my defensive work in that position has been a positive experience.

We are working as a team to be better as an attacking unit so for me it’s getting as many touches as I can off the wing and take opportunities when they come”.

Talking of attacking rugby, not many people will know that Chris played for Great Britain Students 7’s where he was part of the World Championship winning team. ‘Banf’ describes it as his “best rugby moment”.

“As a squad we have developed a lot in the first block of games by learning to win in different ways.”

Chris is a player who is always looking to improve his game at every opportunity. Chris Davies, Aberavon Defence Coach added:

“He is a true professional, works hard, runs hard, plays hard. What I like most about Banf is the conversations you can have with him around rugby and how he sees the game.

Being open-minded and curious around his positioning has allowed him to grow his game to be an exceptional winger considering he played a lot of his rugby at 15 and prior to that at 10.”

A true rugby man, always positive and is excited about the growth the team is showing.

“As a squad we have developed a lot in the first block of games by learning to win in different ways. We have always enjoyed attacking rugby but our defence and kicking game has improved.

That has enabled us to put pressure on the opposition to make mistakes so we can capitalise. You’ve only got to go back to the Carmarthen game, we hardly had the ball in attack but came away with a great win”, says Banfield.

When looking forward at the remaining games in the Indigo Premiership Cup Banfield and his teammates will be hunting down some positive outcomes.

“There’s three tough games to come against opposition who always make it difficult for us. However, we are aiming to top the West and look forward to playing against the opposition from the East for some silverware”.

The flying full-back is now known for wearing a lid due to a bad head wound received during battle – he is also supposedly known to show a resemblance to Matt Damon the famous actor.