Fixture

Waunarlwydd were the visitors to “The Tip” Saturday in a rearranged friendly.  It must be some years since we have played Waunarlwydd at second team level and I will have to check with our statistician, because I certainly can’t remember the last time it happened. They have recently dropped down from the Camarthen Tyres league and currently ride high in Section A of the Swansea and District league so we had a rough idea what to expect.  After a bit of a delay with their bus drifting off up to Pantyffordd!! The game finally got underway.  Within minutes we couldn’t have asked for a better start, the ball came out to centre Andrew Holloway deep in their half and after a strong run from him bouncing off a few tackles, the move seemed to fizzle out but his co-centre Darren Williams came on a great supporting run and gathered the ball off Andrew to run some 15m to the corner for a brilliant start, Bryn Davies failed with the conversion. Unfortunately for us “Waun” came right back at us from the kick off and set their stall out for the remainder of the game by scoring a neat try from their winger in the top right hand corner.  Apart from one failed driving lineout and a penalty from Bryn Davies, Waunarlwydd more or less dominated the rest of the half scoring 2 more converted tries and if it wasn’t through heroic tackling it could have been more. Half Time score Seven Sisters 2nds 8 – Waunarlwydd 2nds 24. When I mentioned “set their stall out” earlier is was in reference to the way Waun were playing especially in the backs, our forwards were holding their own but the passing, running lines  and support play “behind” had us in a lot of trouble and it’s something we haven’t encountered before this season. So that basically was the half time talk tighten up out wide defensively and we should start getting back into the game.  Well it did work as Waun only scored 1 converted try second half which was a superb effort from us to keep them at bay. Right at the death we tried a 15 man lineout on their line (would have been interesting if they managed to steal the ball at that stage!!) but it came to no avail. So the final score was Seven 2nds 8 – Waunarlwydd 31. It was an excellent test for us as they are a good outfit and we acquitted ourselves very well but its good now and again to play a team at a high level to remind us as we strive forward where we want to be and to be honest we are not far off it if we keep learning and adapting. We thanked Waunalrwydd for the game and look forward to playing them again in the near future.