Tenby United 17 - Aberystwyth 25: Following on from the previous evening’s amazing recovery and win in Paris, FBM sponsored Tenby United took to the field on a bitterly cold afternoon hoping to repeat what Wales had done to France and, while the performance in the first half promised a potential repeat, the second half was for some unknown reason a completely different picture, with the promising start not being maintained.

Players started to fall off tackles, there was far too much aimless kicking and, worryingly on two counts, the ball was regularly lost in the tackle and the penalty count against Tenby was extremely high, breaking up any continuity and momentum that was trying to be created.

With six different players from last week’s excellent showing against Llangennech, the side selected showed one or two positional changes along with one or two of the more regulars returning to replace the Youth players who had a promising outing last week.

The side also contained young Billy Truman - the latest of the local Truman clan, following on from Harry (his great-granddad) of the early ’20/30s era, who was capped twice by Wales in 1934 (the first Tenby player to be capped by Wales) and again in 1935, both games against England; Michael (Tatty), his granddad, of the 1964-83 era playing 52 games; Neil, another Tatty (his dad), 1985-2005, putting the red and black shirt on 347 times; and also from the family - Harry’s cousin Les (1947-56 and 72 games); and finally Jason, brother of Neil (1990/91- playing just the one game) - a tremendous family tradition and let’s hope young Billy is not the last of the family to proudly trot out onto Heywood Lane.

In front of a sparse crowd, no doubt impacted by the continuous Six Nations rugby being shown on TV over the weekend, the visitors kicked off away from the scoreboard end, with the gusty breeze in their favour andwith three late changes from the team in the programme.

Despite the initial threat of a Tenby attack involving Luke Dedman, Jack Broadhurst and Jack Tucker, it was Aber who troubled the scoreboard operators first when their first real attack, aided by a badly missed tackle in the centre, ended with fullback Llyr Thomas crossing for a try and an early 5-0 lead.

Recovering from this early reverse, Tenby cobbled together one or two attacks and tested the visitors’ defence to the full with efforts involving Mike Davis, Huw Evans, Jack Tucker, Ben Pugh and Aaron James, with the chip kick over the defence attempted several times to break the deadlock, but to no avail.

Tenby’s persistence eventually paid dividends, however, when a superb break by Moritz Neumann, from deep in his own half, saw the burly centre outpace the scrambling defence and crash through the remains of the stretched Aber defence to cross the whitewash for a great try, which was converted by Lloyd Thomas, taking Tenby to a 7-5 lead.

Unfortunately, this lead was very short-lived as from the restart, and again aided by a missed tackle in the centre, wing Ian Ellis crossed wide out giving the lead back to Aber at 10-7.

Encouraged by the words of captain Luke Dedman, while the conversion attempt was being made, Tenby went straight on the attack, with Ben Pugh, Jack Broadhurst, Luke Dedman, Lloyd Thomas and Aaron James all involved, ending with referee Simon Rees awarding a penalty for a high tackle and resulting in Thomas levelling the scores at 10-10 with an excellent kick.

The remainder of the half see-sawed between the two sides, with both sets of threequarters unable to breach the defence of the opposition, with several bouts of pick and go’s by the forwards being met with a similar outcome.

Kicking by Tenby was getting more erratic as the half progressed and referee Rees blew for half-time when the worst kick by a country mile was put in, close to the Aber line, after Shane Rossiter, Moritz Neumann, Luke Dedman, Jack Broadhurst and Rob Luly had combined to create a three on two situation, with the ball sailing high and wide into touch - a very disappointing way to end the half.

As young centre Ben Pugh had ended the half limping, he was replaced by Billy Truman as the second half got underway, with Aber utilising their big trio of second row and number eight forwards to punch holes in the Tenby defence, and it needed some well organised defence, including a steal at a maul, to keep their line intact.

The pressure paid dividends as an horrendous kick from a defensive position, called the exit move in the modern game, went in field, allowing fullback Llyr Thomas to set up a situation from which centre Dylan Evans slid over the try line to give Aber the lead at 15-10.

The lead was added to within minutes as some more slack home defending saw centre Matthew Hughes going over and widening the gap to 20-10; a situation which got worse for Tenby as within minutes, burly second row and skipper Arwel Lloyd went over for try number five, stretching the lead to 25-10.

Tenby were thankful that number 10 Stefan Rees had left his kicking boots up in Ceredigion, as he missed his fifth conversion of the afternoon.

Tenby used their bench during the second half, with Mike Davis being sent out on the wing for Ashley Murdoch, with his place at flank being taken by Charlie Patching, while Wyndham Williams replaced Huw Evans in the boilerhouse and in the front row Ethan Morgan was replaced by Jack Davies.

As the game dragged to a close, Tenby found themselves camped on the Aber line for the last 10 minutes or so, trying to narrow the scores with a series of pick and go’s, along with some one-out charges for the line.

The Aber defence held firm, but was eventually pierced when the ball was slickly passed along the backs, with centres Moritz Neumann and Billy Truman combining with some beautifully timed passes, to put wing Jack Tucker clear of the last defender to crash over right in the corner. With a superb conversion, Lloyd Thomas closed the score to 25-17 as referee Rees blew for time.

Another narrow defeat, but in terms of performance this was more of a backward step when compared to recent games and no doubt with a two-week break before they trot out at Heywood Lane against league leaders Felinfoel, the coaches will have worked on some of the mistakes spotted during this latest encounter.

Tenby fielded: Aaron James, Ashley Murdoch (Charlie Patching), Moritz Neumann, Ben Pugh (Billy Truman), Jack Tucker, Lloyd Thomas, Shane Rossiter, Ethan Morgan (Jack Davies), Dan Allen, Rob Luly (Rob Clark), Huw Evans (Wyndham Williams), Tom Barrass, Luke Dedman (capt), Mike Davis, Jack Broadhurst.