Tenby United 5 pts.

Gorseinon 21

Tenby United welcomed Gorseinon to a very wet and windy Heywood Lane on Saturday for this Division Three West fixture.

Despite the terrible weather, the pitch was in excellent condition and a large crowd of spectators had gathered to watch the game.

Coastal Cottages sponsored Tenby were looking to do the double over their opponents after beating them by 10 points to three at Gorseinon in the first game of the season.

However, this was not to be, as a much-improved Gorseinon team had turned up to throw a spanner in the works and put a stop to the Seasiders' recent winning spree.

All in all, it was a well-matched game, with both teams trying to play creative, expansive rugby, but the conditions were just not letting this happen.

This forced the game into a dogged forward battle and the Tenby pack looked to be the superior and dominated at the scrummage and were winning quick ruck ball for scrum-half Jason 'Yogi' Scarfe to move to the ever-present Justin Richards and Jonny Palmer to take on many charging runs deep into Gorseinon territory.

Also playing well as always and leading from the front was skipper Nicky Guymer.

Although Tenby were beating Gorseinon up front, the clean, quick ball didn't last for long as the visiting pack resorted to going offside persistently and slowing down any ball that the United backs might have seen.

This forced two Gorseinon yellow cards in the first half, but the home side were not able to capitalise on this.

Good running from fly-half Lloyd Thomas, centre Mark Heywood and winger Simon Stanford did cause Gorseinon problems, but the try line was just out of reach.

Gorseinon mounted their own attacks throughout the first half, but stern Seasiders tackling from Sion Brace, Mosese Makasini, Wyndham Williams and captain Guymer kept the visitors out on almost every attack.

First half scores came by way of a Gorseinon penalty on three minutes, which was answered in the 28th minute when Richards broke off a scrum and was brought down just short. He was able to get the ball away and Toby Smith managed to crash over for an unconverted try.

Gorseinon took the lead again shortly before half-time with a well-worked try.

The second half was much the same as the first, except for Justin Richards, who had had a fine game, leaving the field for the ever-improving Andrew Cooke, and Robert Clarke, who had given all he had in the scrummages and loose, making way for Geoffrey Martin, who ran well throughout the half.

As the second period went on, Tenby tried to move the ball quickly off the scrums which, just as in the first half, their pack dominated, but despite good runs from Brace and Heywood, along with Dai Meyrick, who was on for James Criddle, they just couldn't break the visitors down and it was Gorseinon who had all three second half scores through two tries and a penalty.

Further second half changes for Tenby came in the form of Aled Bowen coming on for Heywood and Rob Clarke returning to the fray after a Palmer injury.

Despite losing the game, the Seasiders will take many positives out of it and will be back to the training field to put it right in time for their next fixture which is tomorrow (Saturday) in the Swalec Plate competition away to Haverfordwest.

Kick-off for this game will be at the earlier time of 2 pm.

Tenby United's next league fixture is away at Penclawdd on December 17, with kick-off at 2.30 pm.

Tenby fielded: Sion Brace, Simon Stanford, Mark Heywood (Aled Bowen), Toby Smith, James Criddle (David Meyrick), Lloyd Thomas, Jason Scarfe, Justin Richards (Andrew Cooke), Luke Dedman, Patrick Elliot, Wyndham Williams, Mosese Makasini, Jon Palmer, Nicky Guymer (capt), Robert Clarke (Geoffrey Martin).