Tenby United 42 pts. Dinas Powys 31

Despite the close scoreline, Tenby United claimed an impressive victory over visiting Dinas Powys in the first of their pre-season friendlies at a sunny Heywood Lane, on Saturday, in a game well refereed by Matthew Evans.

Dinas Powys ended last season in similar fashion to Tenby United by clinching the League Two East Central title on the final game of the season, as well as walking off with the East District Cup by thumping Llantwit Major in the final, but despite their impressive record, the visitors were given a rugby lesson in slick handling and superb backing-up by a home side champing at the bit to get back to league rugby this season in Division One West.

Running in six tries, all converted, ended up being challenged by the visitors who themselves finished with five tries, the last two coming as the game drew to a close when Tenby foolishly tried to create attacking opportunities from the wrong areas of the pitch, which turned what was a comfortable 42-21 scoreline into a deceptively close affair at 42-31.

The coaching staff at Tenby must have been very impressed with the way the starting XV, with four new players, blended from the off, with Ashley Sutton, with no cricket to play, dominating and controlling play. With local newcomers Brian Jeremias (Narberth), Jack Clancey (Haverfordwest), Gethin Thomas (Llangwm) and Craig Barnett (Milford Haven) all showing up well and Nicky Guymer and Jason Ronowitz donning boots again, there was an interesting mix of new and old and, with Turbo, Barry Parsons, Scott James, Roy Osborne and Moritz Neumann all available for the next match, the squad is developing nicely.

On the day, in addition to Sutton - Matthew and Jonny Morgan plus Cookie all impressed.

Playing to their standard tried and tested structured play, the lines of running, linked to good handling and excellent support play, soon got Dinas Powys on the back foot, with Tenby 21 points up very quickly. It was only when this got stretched to trying to carry out the structure, but in the wrong areas of the park, that Dinas get into the game, benefiting from errors made by Tenby.

The lineout and set-pieces (although there were not many during the game) will need some work on the training paddock before the next pre-season match, while the structured and scrambling defence stood up to the test - and all in all, it was a sound initial overall performance and one that pleased coach Cone.

Saturday, August 26, sees the next pre-season game against Nantyglo RFC from Division East One, with a kick-off at 2.30, as the final game before the big league kick-off on September 2 against Llanelli Wanderers.