The day started badly for Tenby United when it was discovered en route to Llandeilo that hooker Phil Hughes had been left behind at the meeting point. Some frantic 'phone calls from the team coach by an embarrassed Gareth Thomas resulted in Phil being found and a lift hurriedly organised, with the missing hooker arriving just before kick-off.

Murky and threatening weather conditions greeted the teams as they took to the field at Cae William and the heavy ground was eventually going to be one of the contributing factors to a third defeat in the last four outings for the Seasiders.

Several failed penalty attempts by both kickers early on kept the score blank as Tenby attempted to bring their threequarters into the game, while Llandeilo set about gaining forward dominance in the set-pieces.

The United threes through Paul Luge - whose unintentional 'kick pass' to Dan Shooter set up one promising break - Sion Brace, Carl Broaders along with Darren Rees and Gavin Brace threatened to break some resolute Llandeilo tackling and the 20-minute mark saw the first try of the game.

Some excellent swift ball handling involving forwards Justin Richards, Chris James and Lee Tucker gave Carl Broaders the opportunity to kick Tenby deep into Llandeilo territory. From the resulting scrum, a clever chip over the oncoming defence by Broaders gave fullback Darren Rees the scoring opportunity wide out. Rees failed to add the extra two points.

The score seemed to spark life into the home forwards and Tenby spent the next 15 minutes camped on their own line and some well organised defence, aided by some bad decision making under pressure and the odd knock-on, prevented Llandeilo from deservedly getting on the scoresheet.

As half-time approached, it appeared Tenby had survived this forward onslaught with their line and ranks still intact, only for injuries to Phil Hughes and Paul Luger to spoil what had been a reasonable performance without ever reaching the level expected by coach Gareth Thomas.

With Nicky Guymer and Will Crockford replacing the injured duo and the rain that had threatened all afternoon well and truly settled in, Tenby found themselves on the defensive from the off, with several retreating scrums giving the back row and scrum-half Andrew Davies plenty of problems. The problems were not confined to the scrum as the home side also stepped-up their use of the rolling maul and from a lineout in the Tenby 22 one such maul led to a try in the corner which could have been attributed to any one of five home players.

James Caine replaced Gene Hocking, as coach Gareth Thomas attempted to bolster his tiring forwards, but the continued lack of an attacking forward platform thwarted any attempts Tenby made to break through a well organised and eager home defence.

It came as no surprise to both sets of supporters when following the next period of pressure the home side scored a well-taken try wide out which was aided by some inept tackling. Despite missing several penalty attempts throughout the game, the Llandeilo fullback surprised everybody by converting the try from the touchline, to give the home side what proved to be a winning 12-5 lead.

With wing Dan Shooter hobbling off, to be replaced by prop Mark Brace, several re-organisational changes were necessary to both forwards and backs and this seemed to drain Tenby of any desire to string together a worthwhile attacking move and the game petered out with a dominant Llandeilo thoroughly deserving their fourth victory of the season.

This was an extremely worrying performance for the Tenby coaching and playing staff and some hard talking and graft by all concerned, aided by support from the physio to get the walking wounded available for selection, will be needed during the week. With high-flying arch rivals Haverfordwest scheduled at Heywood Lane on Saturday, Tenby will be hell bent on putting in a performance that gets their campaign back on track, while at the same time the visitors will be looking to add yet another scalp to their very impressive unbeaten record.

Tenby: Darren Rees, Dan Shooter (Mark Brace), Carl Broaders, Gavin Brace, Paul Luger (Will Crockford), Sion Brace (capt.), Andrew Davies, Lee Tucker, Phil Hughes (Nicky Guymer), Mark Badham, Chris James, Gene Hocking (James Caine), Anthony Griffiths, Justin Richards, Adam Rees.