Behind the scenes with West Wales Raiders Manager Peter Tiffin

Last weekend we travelled to Treharris to face last year’s finalists Valley Cougars, we knew this was going to be a difficult trip as they also had links with South Wales Scorpions. During the week leading up to the game we had named our travelling squad early and prepared on Thursday evening with our usual Captain’s run through.

On Saturday morning things started to unravel as players could not make through illness and commitments, this was not a great start of the day for us as we had to travel up to face the Cougars with 15 players and 2 of which were academy players. With the amount of first team players moving in to double figures for the game we decided to make sure that we all gave our all and not to give any excuses for our performance regardless of the score.

The first half saw a very tight game with both sides playing a very high tempo game, the score at half time was Valley Cougars 14 – 12 West Wales Raiders. The second half was a totally different scenario as the Cougars experience was second to none; the final score was Valley Cougars 62-18 West Wales Raiders.

Even though all the players and staff on the day were disappointed with the score, every individual took something away from the result, we all understood that the young squad gave their all and for 15 players to face 18 which included more than 5 championship one players and to be in the game for nearly 50 minutes is something to be positive about as the future looks bright in West Wales.

After a tough day last Saturday it was time to get back in to the busy working week as we had an array of events and meetings to be involved with.  As the season is growing we have a different session for each evening, this season we have 4 teams taking part in separate competitions. We have our first team competing in Conference League South, Our Second team shall be facing the other teams in Wales in the Welsh Conference & this year we shall be introducing a brand new under 17s and 15s to a new Junior League in Wales.

These are exciting times at the club as we are creating an array of links both locally and internationally but our main area that we make sure we improve and work on is the amazing talent that we have on offer in West Wales. If anyone would like to find out more information regarding any of the teams I have mentioned above please contact myself on 07772949956 as all the teams have plenty of fixtures both home and away for everyone to be involved.