Fixture

Our old friends from last season Mumbles were the visitors to Maes Dafydd yesterday in the preliminary round of the Swansea and District cup. Having played them 4 times last season we certainly got to know them and during those 4 games we had 3 real tough encounters so we were expecting the same yesterday. To spice things up a little we arrived early and were out warming up by 1.15pm going through defensive and handling drills courtesy of Adrian Howells who certainly put us through our paces and set us up nicely for the start of the game. Playing down the slope into the wind we started with a bang, talk was before the game to start using the slope as a weapon as once the opposition are camped there it’s really difficult to get out. Fly half Bryn Davies from the off started pinging the corner to good effect but it was a delightful box kick from scrum half Johnny Griffiths that had the opposition in all sorts of trouble and after a couple of surges from the forwards it was Johnny himself who put rampaging winger Gareth Davies in at the corner following a great Maori sidestep over their full back. Fly half Bryn Davies converted. Although the slope was with us there was a nasty wind blowing up the field and the Mumbles stand-off used this to good effect clearing his line on many occasion during the 1st 20 minutes. Although all that pressure brought us a penalty which Bryn converted. With the half nearly up what looked like an innocuous maul over the far touchline just in our half had number 8 Craig Howells thinking otherwise. He ripped the ball out of the maul and ran a fully 50m down the touchline beating the full back in the process to score a great individual try in the corner. Against the wind Bryn kicked a tremendous conversion to finish the half on a high. Half time score Seven Seconds 17 - Mumbles 0. Brilliant was the word to describe our 1st 40 minutes, the half backs controlled it, our line-out was functioning excellently and although it was passive scrums from the start as Mumbles didn't have a front row our forwards produced some great rumbles from any mauls they could muster and our backs defensive work was superb, so we couldn't have asked for more. As the half progressed more and more changes were made to try and get some fresh legs on, Mumbles at this stage were going in the opposite direction having to lend a player off us as their full back took a blow to the head. Mumbles although under severe pressure tackled heroically and hats off to them for sticking to the task under adversity but all that pressure final told and it was globetrotting winger Dai Hooper fresh from his round the world experience who rounded things off by scampering under the posts for a fine individual try, Bryn missed the conversion!! With some 5 minutes left another Mumbles player went down and it was decided to call it a day. Final Score Seven Seconds 22 - Mumbles 0. Mumbles unfortunately are not the side they were last year as they have lost a lot of players but take nothing away from our performance it was excellent as good as we have played for many a season (the first half inperticular) and it was great to see a decent crowd to witness it. Penlan away next week then it’s a month’s break so let’s finish the first 3rd of the season on a high.

By Alun Gillard