Behind the scenes with West Wales Raiders Manager Peter Tiffin

Last Saturday at Stebonheath Park we held our first senior double header with our reserves facing Bridgend Blue Bulls and our Firsts playing against Torfaen Tigers. The first game saw last year’s welsh conference champions Bridgend Blue Bulls first visit to Stebonheath Park, the first half was a tight affair with both sets off teams having their fair share of the ball, the blue bulls went in leading 18-6 at half time. The second half saw a lot more action with both defences tiring as the game went on, the current welsh champions had too much to offer in the end and won 44-22. Out of the squad that played for the reserves last Saturday there was 4 under 17s and 9 debutants, this was great to see as we have had so many training recently but not much game time for them all to take part in. The second game saw Torfaen Tigers travelling to Stebonheath, last year’s fixture was a very physical game so everyone was intrigued to see how it would develop.

The first points of the game came within the first five minutes as centre Andrew Spowart scored in the right hand corner, Torfaen responded quickly with Liam Silver going in on the raiders flank. This was how the first half would continue as both sets of sides would have their opportunity to attack, the half time score saw the West Wales Raiders go in leading 24-18.

The second half started as the first with the raiders on the scoreboard first with debutant winger Lee Evans scoring a 40 metre solo try, however conversion was missed. A scrum in the raiders own half saw them break away and speedster Curtis Ford scored a try nearly the length of the pitch with Luke Williams converting. Within minutes a drop ball saw the Raiders pounce and quickly ship the ball to their edge where Dan fox offloaded to send Curtis ford in under the posts again, Luke Williams converting. The game looked sown up for the raiders but Torfaen had different ideas firstly Jarred Hinney scored a try with Matt Cummins converting, and with renewed confidence Torfaen sent in pivot Dale Tucker for a fantastic individual try, converted by Matt Cummins. With ten minutes remaining the Tigers scored again through Tom Mathews again converting by Matt Cummins, leaving the score 40-36 in favour of the raiders.

Captain Nathan Beck wrong footed the Torfaen defence leaving a gap wide open for him to run in from 30 metres to score under the posts, Luke Williams converting. And with minutes remaining the try of the game came through raiders launching an attack from their own twenty going through several pairs of hands and with the try under the posts superbly supported by winger Lee Evans, Luke Williams finished the game with a final conversion making the scores West Wales Raiders 52-36.

Once everything had settle down and the crowds started to leave we all  as staff had a discussion of how we thought the day went, even though the first fixture didn’t go our way we were really pleased to see two senior teams with an array of debutants to the game take part at our home ground.

As the week went on it was time to prepare for another busy weekend, this weekend we will go a step further through having a junior and senior welsh conference fixture on Saturday and then a conference league south game on Sunday. This Saturday firstly our under 15s will travel to Pontyclun to face South Wales Rabbitohs and then in the afternoon our Reserves will take on Aber Valley Wolves at their home ground. Both these fixtures are going to be tough as Aber Valley and South Wales Rabbitohs made it to last year’s welsh conference in their representative age grade.

On Sunday our first team travel to Gloucester to face Gloucestershire All Golds Reserves, this will be a part of a double header in which Gloucester’s first team will be opening up. This will be the first time we will be facing the All Golds, even though we haven’t played against them we have been keeping an eye on their recent results and understand that this will be a very difficult fixture for our squad.