Fixture

The Magpies welcomed Berws RFC to Parc y Mynydd Mawr on Saturday afternoon in Admiral League Division 3 West B.  After narrowly losing their last four competitive games confidence had been restored somewhat following last weekend's win at St Davids RFC in the Division 3 Cup, but an all important League victory was still badly needed. Betws took the lead after 10 minutes with a well struck penalty before captain and centre Steffan Price put the Magpies in front with a try. A scrum deep in the Betws 22 saw scrum half pass the ball out to Steven Hewitt,  the outside half dummied with Kian O'Reilly before popping the ball to fellow centre Price who broke two would be tackles to score under the posts. Hewitt added the easy conversion to make it 7-3 to Tumble on 24 minutes. The rest of the half was a pretty even stop start affair lacking in continuity with the weather ranging from bright sunshine to full on monsoon. Betws did put the Magpies under some pressure late in the half but the defence held firm in the sheeting rain.

The second half started with the Magpies in the driving seat but the difficult driving rain conditions and somewhat fussy officiating, disrupted the attacking play of both sides and resulted in scrum after scrum and zero tempo to the game. With the majority of play taking place around the half way play, with try scoring chances at a premium. Flanker Jack Tucker went close with a barstorming run but the ball was lost forward in contact. After 70 minutes the game was stopped for a period following what looked like a nasty leg injury for the Betws openside, who was helped off the field. On 75 minutes the Magpies finally got an opportunity to extend their lead. A dominant scrum near the Betws 22 saw the Tumble pack drive their opponents back. Scrum half Iwan Morgan gathered the ball and fed centre Kian O'Reilly, who broke two tackles on his way to scoring from 22 metres out. Hewitt stepped up to nail the conversion and make the score 14-3 to the home side. Soon after the Magpies put another good phase together but play was brought back when Price was somewhat harshly adjudged to have given a forward pass 10 metres out. The final minutes of this stop start affair were seen out in pouring rain, but when the referee blew the final whistle it was much to the relief of the Tumble players who knew they had secured a vital victory to get their league campaign back on track. An important win with still a number of experienced players missing. Young prop Rhys Tobias put in a good shift and despite being a difficult choice in a stop start affair player of the match goes to acting number 8 Steffan Owen for his high work rate and non stop tackling.

Next weekend the boys travel to Bryncoch RFC in the final group game of the Division 3 Cup before entering a break for the Autumn Wales internationals. Let's hope for another victory.

A copy of the matchday programme can be found at the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z7Q3Zcdgt6jn8xtqK68n-P0FzRjJe_QX/view?usp=sharing

Ymlaen Y Piod