Fixture

Our good friends the Swansea medical students were the visitors to Maes Dafydd yesterday afternoon and after a miserable morning weather wise it soon brightened up to create a pleasant afternoon. Its strange we have been playing the Meds' for nearly 8 seasons now but because of their high turn over rate in players each year you literally don't know what sort of Meds' side you play year in year out. Historically over the years we have been a bit to strong for them having won the last 6-7 encounters but yesterday was a different story. They arrived with a strong squad with around 20 + players but unfortunately no props, uncontested scrums does not do us any favours so fortunatley for us we had 8 front rowers at our disposal so we lent them a couple to have contested scrums throughout the game. The students started brilliantly and set a marker down for the rest of the game immediately from the kick off playing up the slope they received the ball deep into their territory but after quick hands through their back-line their winger was put into space and sped up the touchline to score in the top right hand corner for an excellent try. If that didn't wake us up nothing would have! Bryn Davies kicked a penalty for us but the Meds finished the half strongly scoring 2 unconverted tries and 2 more penalties making the half time score Seven Seconds 3 Swansea Meds' 21. The talk at half time was keep going as the effort was first class but tighten up on any loose kicking as the students were attacking from everywhere and with the slope this was going to be a long afternoon if we didn't. To be fair to us we stuck to the task and it was a war of attrition second half with each team trading blows but with not many points on the board to show for it. It was the Meds though who scored a further unconverted try 20 mins into the game to take the contest away from us. We dominated the last quarter but could not breach their line, we smashed and crashed but their excellent defence held out, with time up a spilt pass by us deep in their 22 fell into their speedy wingers hands and he ran the length of the field to score under the posts. Final score Seven Seconds 3 - Swansea Medical Students 33. We have always known about the students fitness and pace and have been able to counteract that over the years with our power game but they also brought a physicality to their game yesterday and at times we struggled to contain it and thus fully deserved their win in the end. That said for the second week running it was a good game and it was great to see 25+ players having a run out. To conclude special mention goes to front rowers Adrian Howells and Dylan Comley for helping the students out for the full 80 mins but pushing our boys a couple of times off the ball at scrum time wasn't really in the script boys!!!

By Alun Gillard