Tenby United Youth 23 - Resolven youth 24: The much anticipated final of the national youth bowl took place last Saturday at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium with an early start for the young Seasiders.

Leaving Heywood Lane at 7 am and swiftly followed by four packed out supporters coaches plus a number of people driving to the capital.

The scene was set on arrival at the stadium with the players bus driving under the stadium, just like our international team.

From the kick off the Tenby pack showed their intent with some powerful carries up field from Lewis Catt and max brindley, which led to the first scrum.

The front row of Jack brown, Matt Busby and Lucas Probert gave a lovely welcome to the Resolven pack by marching them back leading to a penalty.

From the resulting line out the ball was swiftly moved out from scrum half cam broadhurst, who was again in superb form, the ball went through the slick hands of outside half Harry Rossiter, centres jack gooding, Ben Pugh then a thrust up field by winger Ollie brown led to a penalty.

This gave Rossiter his first shot at goal and he took it, 3-0.

Again the restart was taken and some lovely inter play by the outstanding back row of influential skipper Will Swales, Jake Roberts and Callum Earland moved play up field.

At the next breakdown Resolven were penalised, and again Rossiter stepped up to knock over the penalty and make it 6-0. A dream start for the Seasiders.

Some more great work at scrum time gave the front foot ball the backs needed and again nice hands put Joe Owen away and showing great pace, popping a pass to Oakley Milton but again Resolven gave another shot at goal for Rossiter, he managed to knock the long range penalty over which the likes of Welsh international Leigh Halfpenny would have been proud of.

This seemed to kick start Resolvens fight back and pushed hard at the brick wall defence of Tenby, resolvens back line set up a dangerous attack but the quick thinking Milton took a gamble and intercepted a pass just outside the Tenby 22 he put the afterburners on and went under the posts to score a great try. The conversion knock over by Rossiter made it 16-0.

This score seemed to galvanise the Resolven team and they kept trying to break the Tenby line, in the end something had to give and it was a score to Resolven to bring them back to 16-7.

The call from the coaches was to play in Resolven half but a mistake gave the opposition a chance which they took, to leave the half time score at 16-14.

The second half was under way and those couple of tries in the first half gave Resolven some belief and they showed their class in battering away at the Tenby line, but some huge tackles from the young Seasiders kept the score to 16-14.

The game was to and fro for large parts of the second half, and again the call was to make the Resolven back three turn and try to protect the lead.

But eventually the Tenby line was broken and the lead changed hands for the first time, with Resolven going up 21-16.

A great chase at the kick off put pressure back on Resolven but they managed to work their way up field and the Seasiders were guilty at the ruck. The penalty was kicked to make it 24-16.

Now the Tenby boys needed to stage a huge fight back and a series of rucks gave Tenby hooker Busby a close range try. The stadium announcer didn’t mention the scorer but I’m sure I heard a proud father in the stand take over the job and announce the try scorer himself! Rossiter kicked the conversion to make it 24-23.

The coaches emptied the bench with Harvey Johns, Dylan Johns, Jay Brace, Evan Day, Gethin Kelly, Caleb O’Neill and Taz Richards joining the fray immediately made the impact. Could Tenby snatch a dramatic win?

With only a few minutes left on the clock the Seasiders threw everything at the Resolven line but it was not meant to be and a turnover resulted in the ball being kicked out, and the final whistle was blown to the jubilation of Resolven.

With the final score 24-23, it was a case of so close but yet so far for Tenby.

“From the coaches we couldn’t have been prouder - to push a very strong side close was immense,” said coach Richard Rossiter.

“With the first team having a tough season this group of boys gave the club something to be immensely proud of.

“A big thank you from us all to the supporters who travelled up in numbers, all the kind donations, Keith and committee, Stef from Taf Valley coaches, who made our trips fun.

“Special thanks to Mal, Tracey and Dom for their hospitality over the weekend.

‘Plans are already in place for pre-season for both seniors and youth, and the future of the club looks bright, with Jack Brown, Gethin Kelly, blue, Ben Pugh, Max Brindley, Harvey Johns and captain Will Swales stepping up to senior rugby,” he added.