St. Clears 17 pts. Tenby United 24

In their second pre-season friendly, Division Two West champions Tenby United travelled to Division 3A West champions St. Clears to play what most people believed to be the first ever game at First XV level between the two sides, despite only being just over 17 miles apart.

Being in different counties and various leagues, aligned to the fact that St. Clears RFC was only formed in 1985, and did not become a full member of the WRU until the start of season 2001-2002, also probably contributed to the lack of opportunities to meet earlier.

A very impressive set-up welcomed Tenby, with the pitch in great nick and the clubhouse under construction - if only the wind had stayed away, as it contributed in a very negative way and that, aligned to numerous handling errors, silly mistakes by both sides, plus a concerto of whistles constantly through the match, made for a very scrappy game, with Tenby outscoring the home side by four tries to three to claim victory.

Tenby scored tries via Jordan Asparassa, Turbo (making a very welcome return to first team rugby) and two for Alex Thomas. All the try scorers, along with Roy Osborne, put in impressive displays, as did the Tenby front row.

The coaching staff of both sides would also have preferred not to have been faced with a continual flow of injuries, which when added to the agreed ‘in play’ changes that also took place, led to a situation where players were always trying to sort out how to co-ordinate moves etc. with new player combinations, and this prevented any real structured play to be carried out.

The home side obviously had a point to prove, playing as they do in a league below Tenby, and their physicality and piling players into the breakdown emphasised this.

At the end of the day, it was another step towards getting ready for the big kick-off on September 2 and with the majority of missing players available for the final pre-season match against Nantyglo tomorrow (Saturday) up at Heywood Lane, the coaching staff can then get together to see what XV trots out against Llanelli Wanderers for the first league game.