Kidwelly 28 pts. Tenby United 14

With several changes from last week’s splendid opening victory against Llanelli Wanders, as the coaching team rotated the starting line-up with the bench, Tenby Tourers sponsored Tenby United faced another challenging encounter as they travelled to Kidwelly to face last season’s Division One West champions, who would be targeting a victory to recover from their away defeat in their opening game against Gowerton.

The selected side was also subject to a late change, with new centre Craig Barnett crying off injured, Moritz Neumann moving from the wing to replace him and Jevon Barnes coming off the replacements bench to take the wing position - and a returning Jack Guerreiro slotting in on the bench.

The match started as a fierce outbreak of rain was just about stopping and the crossfield wind was picking up, which would make passing and handling a bit of a lottery.

Roy Osborn, Ashley Sutton and Jonny Morgan were all involved in early skirmishes deep in the Kidwelly 22, but Tenby failed to capitalise on their early possession, allowing the home side to steal the ball and counter-attack, causing the United to drift offside when attempting to quell this and ending with Gareth Rees slotting over the first penalty of the match for an early 3-0 lead.

Tenby reacted to this reverse immediately as from the restart Jonny Morgan and Jordan Asparassa combined to cause Kidwelly to offend and from the resulting penalty Ashley Sutton added the three points making it a 3-3 game.

Maintaining the momentum from their opening score, the United threatened the Kidwelly line, with Moritz Neumann, Luke Hansford, Jack Clancy and Lewis Davies all prominent, but their input was more than nullified when from a scrum on the Kidwelly 22, the home side destroyed the Tenby eight with a tremendous strike against the head. This saw the Tenby front row collapsing, and as the ball emerged from the remains of the scrum, Kidwelly brought their speedy backs into play, but fortunately for the visitors, the final, what would have been scoring pass, sailed into touch.

The pressure was maintained by the home side who from the resulting lineout stole the Tenby throw-in and as they sped the ball out wide, a missed tackle in midfield opened up the way for centre Liam Smith to stroll over wide out for the first try of the afternoon and an 8-3 lead.

As they did after the initial Kidwelly score, Tenby rallied and, following some good work by Jonny Morgan, Moritz Neumann and Jevon Barnes, they again forced the home side to concede a penalty, from which Ashley Sutton reduced the lead to 8-6.

The home side were pressurised by Tenby and from a high Ashley Sutton kick a superb Scott James tackle on the ball catcher forced a knock-on and a scrum. A very unlucky quick strike at the resulting scrum by Gethin Thomas struck a Tenby leg and ricocheted out of the scrum, favouring the home side, but fortunately was played by a Kidwelly player in an offside position.

Tenby were under real pressure at the scrum and scrum-half Matthew Morgan was hurried into getting the ball away, but his attempted miracle pass was scooped up initiating another home attack, from which referee Harries penalised Tenby, giving Rees the opportunity to slot over another shot at goal and pushing the lead out to 11-6.

The misery at scrum time for Tenby continued and from another strike against the head Kidwelly surged into attack, only to be stopped by solid Tenby defence, from which Jordan Asparassa, Barry Parsons and Matthew Morgan made ground. However, Kidwelly evtentually stripped the ball from Ashley Sutton and set up another counter-attack of their own, which again benefited from a missed tackle and saw Liam Smith sidestep his way over the line for his second try, which following the successful conversion, gave the home side a thoroughly deserved 18-6 lead.

Referee Harries had warned Tenby several times about going offside in defence, and also slowing the ball down at the breakdown, and it came as no surprise when hooker Gethin Thomas was sent to the naughty step after trying to infringe infringe in the lead up to the try. Skipper Luke Hansford was then selected to make way for replacement hooker Joe Poole to take the field.

Despite a sizeable score building up against them, Tenby maintained their attacking threat and centre Scott James became the hero when he stole a Kidwelly ball and set up a situation where Joe Poole and Luke Dedman made valuable yards, only for the home side to send Tenby back-pedalling with a huge clearance kick which found touch deep in the Tenby 22.

From the attack that followed, Kidwelly transgressed and Scott James took a quick tap and go, but, according to referee Harries, dropped ‘knees first’ on the Kidwelly tackler and was sent to join Thomas on the naughty step.

To compound the situation, Rees added the three points from the resulting penalty and the half closed with the home side comfortably leading 21-6 and Tenby down the 13 players.

The coaching group obviously did some stern talking at the break as Tenby started the second half far more aggressively than they had finished the first, with Joe Poole putting in his customary dumper truck tackle which signalled the end of the game for Kidwelly outside-half Rhodri Jones.

With the 10-minute yellow card time up, the reshuffle saw Joe Poole staying on the field for Thomas and Luke Hansford reappearing, while Rob Luly replaced hard-working prop Rob Clarke and Jack Guerreiro took the place of Scott James.

Tenby became camped on the Kidwelly line and several forward drives were put together, but the well-organised home defence stood firm and frustrated the United.

However the pressure was maintained and, spreading the ball wide, Ashley Sutton was next into the action with a neat chip over the onrushing home defence, which allowed Jack Guerreiro to scoop up the bouncing ball and cross the whitewash for an unconverted try, reducing the lead to 21-11.

The pressure was maintained by Tenby, who were now full of belief that they could narrow the score even further and several more forward drives tested the home defence to the full, but they maintained their shape and aggressive style, offering little reward for the hard-working Tenby eight.

With Andrew Cooke on for Barry Parsons and Mike Davis replacing Jack Clancy, the fresh legs gave Tenby the added momentum that was needed and with the forwards gaining valuable yards, which scrum-half Matthew Morgan capitalised on by sending the ball out wide, both Jack Guerreiro and Jordan Asparassa were stopped with some splendid defending by the home side.

Their defence sparked referee Harries into eventually showing a yellow card, for yet another offside penalty, and Ashley Sutton obliged by adding the extra three points, narrowing the score to 21-14 with all still to play for.

Try as they might, however, Tenby could not capitalise on the chances they were creating and from one very promising situation, which had gone the length of the field, the inevitable happened when from an attempted miracle pass, when perhaps going to ground to set up another ruck should have been the favoured option, Kidwelly were presented with the ball. This allowed their pacey backs to show what should have been done by copying Tenby and going the length of the field, the difference being that centre Liam Smith secured their (and his) third try of the afternoon, which was converted by Rees, closing the game out for a well-deserved 28-14 victory for the home side, while for Tenby, it was a case of what could have been

Difficult to assess what went wrong or what didn’t go right with this performance, as inconsistency amongst the Tenby outfit prevailed throughout the game. Chances were created, but too many of them were squandered, while Kidwelly seemed able to turn their limited opportunities into scores. The set-piece, both scrum and lineout, was a major concern for Tenby and will need some work on the training paddock this week, as will tackles being missed at critical times during attacking moves put together by the speedy Kidwelly backs.

Tenby United would like to thank St. Brides Spa Hotel for sponsoring last week’s home win against Llanelli Wanderers, as well as the Brace clan for their ball sponsorship, along with Heywood’s Butchers for their continued man-of-the-match award.

Tenby: Jonny Morgan, Jevon Barnes, Scott James (Jack Guerreiro), Moritz Neumann, Jordan Asparassa, Ashley Sutton, Matthew Morgan, Rob Clarke (Rob Luly), Gethin Thomas (Joe Poole), Lewis Davies, Luke Dedman, Jack Clancy (Mike Davis), Barry Parsons (Andrew Cooke), Roy Osborn, Luke Hansford