Fixture

Another journey to Swansea awaited us yesterday as we made the trip down to Penlan. There was a bit of disruption in the morning with boys being unavailable but with a good squad of 20 travelling or meeting us there we went down in confident mood. After our heroic display last week, the task this week was obviously try to win the game but make sure our performance didn't drop from the previous encounter. With that in mind we started with a bang and really took it to Penlan in the opening exchanges, these early exchanges ended with scrum half Chaye Griffiths storming his way over for a well deserved try, stand off Bryn Davies missed the conversion. Penlan within minutes set their stall out and started running hard back at us, our defence stood firm but in the end with their heavier boys still fresh it was only a matter of time before they opened the door and they scored a converted try near our posts. Both sides went at it hammer and tongs during the first quarter and no quarter was given. Our scrum at this stage though started to get dominant and a resulting penalty followed from an infringement at this phase, Bryn Davies converted. With the half coming to a close what looked like a standard "hit up" from centre Andrew Holloway materialised into something much more, after breaking the first line on the Penlan "22" he ended up beating a few more defenders to cross for a fine individual try in the corner, Bryn Davies converted brilliantly. Half Time score Penlan 7 - Seven Seconds 15. The 1st half was a bruising but not dirty encounter but 3 yellow cards were dished out, this was felt by both sets of players and supporters as slightly harsh but there were more to follow!! Also the wind in the first half was blowing across the field and no major advantage was gained by both teams but suddenly it shifted slightly to the bottom left hand corner, with this gain in mind our team talk was to try and pin Penlan in that corner and get our forwards in the red zone to strike. Well it seemed to work as immediately scrum half Chaye Griffiths in the first 10minutes put up 2 to 3 towering box kicks which caused chaos in the Penlan defence, from a resulting line out deep in their 22 hooker Ryan Rogers peeled off and ploughed over for a fine try, this went unconverted. Moments later we were at it again and after a blind side move deep in their territory centre Andrew Holloway pounced over for his 2nd try of the day, Bryn Davies converted. Score to date was Seven Seconds 27 - Penlan 7, it seemed the game was there now for the taking but Penlan fair play had other ideas and threw the kitchen sink, table, kettle, microwave and anything else they could find at us for a brutal 5-10min period on our line, but with incredible defence by us we weathered that ferocious storm and cleared our lines. With quarter of an hour to go Penlan knew after that period they had to score something but they came away with nothing and it looked by their body language that was it. We weren't finished though and back up we went and it was outstanding number 8 Craig Kendall who finished the game off in style diving over from close range. Final Score Seven Seconds 32-Penlan7. It was a hard but enjoyable game from our perspective which had a bit of everything but 6 yellow cards being dished out during the whole of the 80 minutes seemed really strange. That aside not many teams will go to Penlan and put 30 points on them this season that's for sure so hats off to everyone involved with what was a brilliant result. Its a bit of a break now with the Autumns coming up but its been a fantastic 1st 3rd the last 2 games imperticular were really pleasing and we now have a great core of players which I am sure will carry us on now till the rest of the season. Well done boys thanks for your efforts to date.

By Alun Gillard