Match Report: West Wales Raiders vs Devon Sharks

By Peter Tiffin,

With the first test in the newly created shield between Devon Sharks and the Raiders at Brixham this afternoon (Sunday 22nd May) it was a great chance to see both sides play against each other for the first time.
The Raiders decided to field a travelling squad of mostly reserves and development players to give them the opportunity to play against a team with aspirations of being a part of the conference league south.

With an early kick off organised everyone was eager to get on with the game,f…rom the start the young raiders side looked to put the pressure on the Sharks, with a quick Play the ball the raiders found the Sharks defending tight and were able to score on the left hand side of the posts with Dafydd Phillips scoring and Daf Daniel converting, from the restart the Sharks defending well but the raiders again applied the pressure and prop Rhys Davies managed to offload in the tackle to put Daf Daniels in for a try, Daf Daniels converted his own try. With the score at 12-0 after 10 minutes Devon has some time with the ball and with a great inside pass their prop went over under the posts for a well worked try.

From the kick off the raiders applied the pressure and Devon made a mistake allowing raiders winger Liam Liam Johnson going over to score,with minutes remaining Devon had a few more chances and managed to score bring the score to Devon sharks 10-20 West Wales Raiders at half time.

After both teams going in for half time to dry off with the weather conditions so strong both teams came out at a slower pace to begin the second half it took a long time for the first score as both sides had their opportunity but raiders went over again with debutant Mathew O’flanagan diving over for his first ever try for the raiders,with only 15 minutes left raiders had opportunities to make the score a but made a few mistakes and only took 2 opportunities to finish the game Devon Sharks 10-38 West Wales Raiders.