TWINS from Newport who took up chess just two years ago will represent Wales in the European and World championships this year.

Identical twins Rhys and Owen Bennett, aged 12, joined their school club at Rougemont and haven’t looked back since.

In little over two years, the pair from Caerleon have already enjoyed an impressive winning streak racking up 12 first place wins at regional and national competions between them.

Rhys is the current under 13 and 14 Welsh National Champion 2012, while his brother reached the Terafinal of the annual nationwide schools championships in 2011 putting him among the top 200 youngsters out of 65,000 entrants.

The pair, who receive two hours coaching a week from the 2009 Welsh Champion Ioan Rees, compete most weekends. And while they are party to the usual sibling rivalry, dad Carl Bennett, says the Year 7 pupils rarely argue about it because they are evenly matched.

He said: “They are very competitive with each other but they nearly always draw.”

“It’s amazing really. We didn’t even know they could play chess or that they had the aptitude for it.”

The brothers will travel to Prague for the European Championships in August and to Slovenia for the World Championships in November, where they will be up against 200 hopefuls in their age range.