West Wales Raiders vs Coventry Bears – Match Report

By Peter Tiffin.

West Wales Raiders travelled to Coventry on the back of a heavy defeat to the Cougars in their third away fixture of the season, the Raiders travelled with a full team unlike the week before, however as luck had it, Rhys Davies pulled his hamstring in the warm up, and the 18th man Jamie Davies stepped up, with a little bit of a rejig they we ready to go.

The first 10 minutes was a physical encounter with the raiders coming off worse loosing captain Nathan Beck and centre Daf…ydd Phillips to injury leaving the raiders with 15 men to complete the remainder of the game. Coventry were quick to capitalise on this and scored three well worked tries back to back leaving the raiders shell shocked. The raiders regrouped and found their rhythm and showed great character to bring the score to 14-10, just before half time Coventry found a gap and took the score to 18-10.

The second half started very similar to the week before with Coventry taking the score line to 32-10 after 10 minutes with raiders having no way of stopping them. Raiders Pivot Luke Williams rallied the lads which seemed to be the Catalyst for the raiders fight back. Over the next 15 minutes the raiders found the form of old and brought the score line back to 32-32 with tries from Morgan Jefferies scoring 2, Harry boots scoring 1 and what was definitely the try of the game, a well worked move from the scrum 10 meters from the raiders try line, ended with winger Cutis ford winning a foot race 75 meters to the Coventry line. With time ticking and the score line so close, Coventry attacked hard but couldn’t breach the raiders defence and had to settle for a drop goal taking score to 33-32.

With 10 minutes left to go, both team wanted the spoils of war and fought hard for the remainder of the game, Coventry struck first and converted their own try only for the raiders to strike back immediately with Morgan Jeffries going over in the left corner for his third of the day which Luke williams converted.

With 5 minutes left to go the raiders knew they had to score but through chasing the game they gave Coventry a lifeline with a penalty under the sticks which Coventry were not going to pass up and eventually scored and converted. With the game slipping away pivot Luke Williams coming up with a little bit of magic allowing Jonny Rees to regather the ball from kick off, with a quick play of the ball and some creative play the raiders managed to put the youngest member of the team Rowland Kaye over in the corner for his first senior try.

However this was not enough on the day and the final whistle went with the score Coventry Bears 43-42 West Wales Raiders.