Behind the Scenes with West Wales Raiders Manager Peter Tiffin

Last weekend saw a double header of rugby league at Stebonheath Park, Llanelli as West Wales Raiders juniors and seniors played a fixture in their respective league. First up was West Wales Raiders under 15’s v Aber Valley Wolves under 15’s, the game began with the raiders on top scoring two quick tries to take an early lead, but then Aber Valley seemed to find their rhythm, the game was back and forth with the final minutes being very tense as Aber Valley took the lead to make it 22-20, with only second remaining the Raiders had an opportunity in which prop Ewan Badham raced through to score under the posts, pivot Joe Hawkins added the conversion and the game ended West Wales Raider 26-22 Aber Valley Wolves. This game was a great way to start the day with plenty of talented players on show creating a very skilful game.

The afternoon’s fixture then saw Gloucester All golds travel to Llanelli for the first time, with both sides competing for fourth place everyone knew that it was going to be an entertaining game. The game began with Gloucester All Golds coming out a lot quicker than the home side having a lot more of the play, even though Gloucester all golds had more of the possession and scored 3 tries the scores were still level at half time. The raiders came out with new tactics and a different style to their play in which the all golds couldn’t handle and within fifteen minutes of the second half the scores were 28-14 to the Raiders, the second half continued the better for the Raiders as they took the score to 40 points, even though the margin was too large for Gloucester, they finished the game with a try and ended the game Raiders 40-18 All Golds.

As the week moved on it was now time to try and finalise a fixture that myself and the Wales under 16’s staff had been trying hard to organise, it was a big one for us as a super league outfit wanted to send over their under 16s to face a welsh select under 16s at Stebonheath Park. With a lot of last minute preparations to sort it was finally released that Catalan Dragons under 16’s would be visiting West Wales for the first time. All of the players and family are really looking forward to the fixture as the preparation this week has been very good with training against the Wales under 18’s squad at Cardiff last Sunday helping the squad run through everything that they had been taught.

This weekend will also see fellow weslh side Valley Cougars visit Stebonheath Park as third versus fourth in the conference league south will battle in Llanelli.

Kick off for the fixture on Saturday will be 14:30 and the game between the Welsh select and Catalans will be at 10:15 am on Sunday.

So why not come down and support rugby league in the fantastic venue over the weekend.