Tenby United 57 pts Pontyberem 19

Tenby Tourers sponsored Tenby United welcomed Pontyberem to Heywood Lane for an earlier than usual kick-off due to the Wales v Springboks game at Cardiff and, despite this change to the usual 2.30 start, there was a very reasonably sized crowd to see this battle between the third and fourth placed teams in Division Two West.

The sides had last met in season 2013/14, with Tenby coming away with two comfortable victories on their way to promotion to Division One West, while Pontyberem suffered from these defeats, plus many more, to get relegated to Division Three West A. While Tenby held their status in their new division for the following season, Pontyberem addressed the problems that saw them relegated to get promoted as champions to Division Two West, where they have remained.

With Heywood Lane recovering well from the adverse weather conditions earlier in the week, the visitors (who were only one place behind third-placed Tenby United) kicked off in what were ideal conditions for an open game of running rugby, which it turned out to be.

Following a fairly even first half, with the United narrowly leading, the second half saw a devastating performance by the Seasiders as they destroyed the visitors with a scintillating display of running rugby that yielded six additional tries and a very comfortable 57-19 victory, which maintains third place in the league with a healthy 10-point gap to Pontyberem, who remain in fourth place.

The opening 10 minutes of the game consisted of a series of high up-and-unders as defences were tested and probably came out even, with initially Pontyberem taking the lead when home fullback Jonny Morgan uncharacteristically failed to cleanly field a kick, allowing centre Aled Price, who had chased well and applied the pressure, to go over unopposed. Mike Sauro added the extras.

Tenby responded virtually immediately, with speedy Jordan Asparassa scooping the ball up from a wayward kick and releaseing the supporting Andrew Cooke, who scored wide out. Turbo Lewis added the extras to give a 7-7 game.

Despite arriving with a limited squad of players, that appeared to be put together as a team in the minutes leading up to kick-off, Pontyberem seemed to be playing OK and as for Tenby, they could only play what had been put on the field as a team representing Pontyberem.

From a very messy scrum ball, which Pontyberem failed effectively to control, scrum-half Will Crockford put in a huge clearance kick, which was turned into a superb kick by the willing chasers, who forced the visitors’ defence into an error where they dropped a pass and with the ball stolen, quick hands amongst the Tenby players gave centre Scott James an opportunity he cashed in on to give his side the lead at 12-7.

As previously, however, the lead was short-lived as a Tenby dropped ball was scooped up by Rees, who left Mark Heywood in his wake as he went over for try number two. With Sauro again adding the extras, the lead swopped hands to 14-12 to the visitors.

Tenby picked up a couple of blood injuries within a few minutes, with flanker Andrew Cooke and prop Ethan Morgan leaving the field to be replaced by Alex Thomas and Rob Luly.

Tenby went into a phase of ball retention, but lacked the necessary forward momentum as Scott James, Will Crockford and Turbo all inter-passed slickly, but failed to create the necessary go-forward, and when Luke Dedman tried to show them what was needed, he then lost the ball in contact.

Sensing that the game needed a score, as half-time approached, both sides reverted back to kick tennis, with high up-and-unders dominating the game. However, the tactic did yield the desired result when quick clean possession off the top from a lineout by Alex Thomas, and some slick handling by the threes, with Jonny Morgan entering the line to make the extra man, saw Jordan Asparassa slide over wide out, to take the interval score to 17-14.

The Tenby coaching staff obviously conveyed what was needed in the second half as the players took the field with Kieron Machin and a returning Toby Smith replacing Will Crockford and Jack Guerreiro, respectively.

But it was Luke Dedman who put the visitors immediately on the backfoot with a surging run and, from the ensuing breakdown deep in their 22, number eight Barry Parsons powered his way over the line for try number four of the day to Tenby and a 22-14 lead plus the four-try bonus point.

Maintaining the pressure, and sensing that the visitors were struggling to keep up with the pace that had now been injected by Tenby, a clever kick through by Turbo was deemed by referee Andrew Miles to have been taken over the try line by a Pontyberem defender and ordered a five-metre scrum, which was comfortably won by Tenby and, with the Pontyberem back row still packing down to stop a pushover try, number eight Barry Parsons cleverly picked up from the base and fed Andrew Cooke, who went over for his second score of the afternoon. Getting back on target, Turbo added the conversion to extend the lead to 29-14.

With the crowd now in full voice, and Pontyberem under the cosh, the next try came off stolen ball at the breakdown, exploited with quick hands by the threes, who released Mark Heywood to power his way over in the corner. The difficult conversion proved to be no trouble for Turbo as he added the two points and a satisfying 36-14 lead, with a rather despondent looking Pontyberem side watching glumly from under the sticks.

Tries were coming thick and fast and next to take centre stage was Scott James, who waltzed through a stretched visitors’ defence, having been taken apart by another surging run by a rampant Luke Dedman, and then quick ball transfer to the right side of the breakdown, followed by the same to the left and finished off with a switch back to the right, with no defenders left to stop Scott dotting the ball down under the sticks, for Turbo to add his two-point contribution to a 43-14 score.

The contribution of Toby Smith, which had been missed during his illness lay-off, was emphasised with a neat chip over the on-rushing Pontyberem defence, allowing Jordan Asparassa to get his second try and Turbo his fifth conversion and a 50-19 score.

Obviously the conversion kick exertions had taken their toll on Turbo and when tasked to bend down and pick up a rolling ball and then put in a tackle (well he was playing his 120th game at first team level for the red and blacks), he fell a tad short of what was required and Pontyberem welcomed this relief by putting some attacks together that tested the Tenby defence.

The were eventually rewarded when, aided by a slack throw-in at a lineout, an opportunity was well taken by the Pontyberem pack through prop Iestyn Jones, who crossed the line for an unconverted try, narrowing the lead to 50-19.

With the game well won, Tenby relaxed and went off the boil and, with Pontyberem now having the possibility of coming away with a bonus point for a fourth try, they put together some threatening moves, which Tenby managed to contain and Toby Smith and Jordan Asparassa combined well to pop the ball to the supporting Jonny Morgan, who crossed unopposed for a well-worked try, converted by Turbo, extending the lead out to 57-19.

This score obviously hurt the visitors, who would have still liked to come away with at least a four-try bonus point, and it took a dumper truck crunching tackle by Alex Thomas and a superb last-ditch tackle by fullback Jonny Morgan to stop them from achieving this.

The game ended on a high, with Tenby again exerting their superiority and just missing out on adding to their score, with the ball being knocked on with the try-line inches away.

Referee Andrew Miles blew for time and the crowd either headed down to the club to watch the Wales v South Africa game on TV, or, like the match reporter, zoom down the M4 to be one of the lucky 55,122 fans to utter those now famous words “I was there.”

An excellent second half, following a closely fought first half, during which Tenby racked up 40 points against conceding only five, must have pleased the coaching staff as they emerged from the Wales autumn series of matches period, with fifth placed Tumble visiting Heywood Lane next Saturday and a trip to bottom-placed Carmarthen Athletic being the last game of the year, before they start the reverse 10 fixtures in the second half of the season.

Repeat victories from the first half of the season will need to be matched, along with two wins against the two teams that have lowered their colours, namely Fishguard and Goodwick (who mysteriously have only achieved one more victory since that season opener) and second-placed Hendy, set as a basic target.

The extra incentive will be to pick up as many four-try bonus points as there are available and restrict the opposition to none, and certainly no matches within seven point margins to the final game score. Tough ask, but achievable. Anything else that happens in the league is beyond their reach, with no way of making a difference to where Tenby end up.

Tenby United would like to thank Tenby Tourers for their match sponsorship and Mason Bros for their ball sponsorship, as well as Heywood’s Butchers for man-of-the-match sponsorship

Tenby: Jonny Morgan, Mark Heywood, Scott James, Jack Guerreiro (Toby Smith), Jordan Asparassa, Tom Lewis, Will Crockford (Keiron Machin), Dan McDermott, Joe Poole (Dan Allen), Ethan Morgan (Rob Luly for blood 10mins)+(Rob Luly), Luke Dedman, Mike Davis (Alex Thomas), Andrew Cooke (Alex Thomas for blood 10mins), Barry Parsons, Luke Hansford

Club history

The club are attempting to unearth/obtain as much past playing data as possible and all the data is being turned into useful information... highlighting number of games played, scoring... and ideally all at match level. Old newspaper reports are an ideal way of obtaining this data, along with any old programmes that may be around. If you can help... please contact Keith Walker on 01834 845721 or contact via email on keef.walker@btinternet,com. Any support will be very much appreciated.