This is a very big week of rugby for Llandovery - both town and gown, writes Huw S Thomas.

And for Drovers centre Adam Warren, it will be a particularly busy one.

On Thursday night he lines up against Ebbw Vale in a top of the table SRC clash and on Saturday he will be on schoolmaster duty as backs coach to Llandovery College who face Christ College up in Brecon.

The once-capped international centre will be assisting Director of Rugby Nathan Thomas in team preparations for the 128th match between the two famous old schools.

34-year-old Warren has been in outstanding midfield form for the Drovers and will be a key figure in the game at Eugene Cross Park between the two remaining unbeaten sides in the SRC.

“As always against Ebbw, it’s going to be one heck of a game,” predicted Warren.

Less than 48 hours later, he will be supervising the College’s backs attack and defence in the annual clash with Christ College, and is relishing the challenge.

“We have been a little lethargic in our build up but no motivation will be needed for such a famous game on Saturday,” he said.

“The whole school buzzes with anticipation through the week and we hope the boys can do justice to the occasion when so many old boys of both schools return to see how their ‘alma mater’ is doing.”

Because of the Ebbw Vale - Llandovery game being switched to midweek, local rugby fans will have a Saturday free to attend the big schoolboy clash in Brecon.

In the SRC, Ebbw Vale have the better record so far, having won their first three games with maximum bonus points, including an astonishing 60-20 win over Cardiff.

Llandovery - top of the table by dint of having won all four of their games - travel in the knowledge that only their very best will be enough to take the spoils.

Ebbw will be defending the Challenge Shield that they took off Llandovery last year.

Similar to New Zealand’s Ranfurly Shield, the “holder” puts up the Shield for competition in every home game in the regular league season and it will be an almighty task for anyone to snatch it from Jason Strange’s men.

Llandovery will know that the key to any success against the Steelmen lies in not giving away penalties.

To surrender ground and position in their own half invites a close range line-out that will - more often than not – end up with a thunderous charge into the in-goal area at the cost of five or seven points.

Euros Evans has bravely given opportunities to a batch of promising young players in the games against Newport, Swansea and RGC but on Thursday he will need all the knowhow of his experienced players in the face of the Vale onslaught.

Although injuries to back rowers Stuart Worrall and Osian Davies will not help his cause, the match promises to be a tight affair with bookmakers Dragon Bet making the Gwent side narrow favourites to win.

Attention will switch to Saturday afternoon, to Brecon, where Llandovery College face Christ College in a fixture first played in 1879 at Builth Wells, two years before the formation of the Welsh Rugby Union.

Christ College may have won just 29 of the matches and drawn 10 but that hides the ferocity and quality of their challenge over the years.

The ferocity remains, respect too, as was shown in last year’s recent reunion of the two teams that played in the centenary match in 1979 when - 45 years later - old boys flew back from the corners of the earth to meet up with teammates and opponents alike at the Cardiff and County Club.

Old Breconian and British Lion Rob Ackerman flew in from Australia and Llandoverian wing Bleddyn Rees from the USA for a night of rugby tales and reminiscences that carried on long into the morning.

Llandovery, as Welsh Schools and Colleges Conference A champions, will be favourites to beat opponents who play in the lower Conference B league.

Last year the Carmarthenshire independent school won 29-12 after the Brecon underdogs had posed them a lot of problems up front.

Llandovery went down 34-22 to Cardiff’s Ysgol Glantaf some weeks ago whilst Christ’s lost 31-24 to the same opponents in an early season friendly.

This seems to suggest that the gap between the two old adversaries may not be that much but much will depend on team selection.

The Llandovery squad is full of Scarlets Academy players and in Carwyn Leggatt-Jones they possess a Welsh U18 international fly half of huge promise.

That said, they are not all certain to play, given academy and representative constraints, and the Lilywhites will not relish the trip up the A40 to face an in-form pack under joint captains hooker Ioan Jones and prop Lloyd Conquer.

Newly appointed Coach of Elite Performance, ex-Wales and Lions centre Jonathan Davies, is slowly exerting his influence on Christ College rugby and has much to look forward to in his first taste of what the late and great JBG Thomas described as Wales’s own “Varsity Match.”