Fixture

Tumble travelled to Gorseinon RFC on Saturday afternoon in a hastily arranged friendly after Hendy called the scheduled league game off due to an unplayable pitch. Taking a squad of 20 players even accounting for a few injuries and a couple of unavailable players the team look in a strong position for the second half of the season. Short of a couple of players Gorseinon were lent a player and the Magpies dropped a number to see the game start at 14 a side. Gorseinon scored first at the 35th minute mark through a well worked back move and the score remained 5-0 at the interval. At halftime the Tumble coaching team gave the players some added encouragement with the aim of upping the tempo in the second half.

The Magpies backline showed up well all game putting into play some well worked moves which were pleasing to see for backs coach Steffan Davies, things are really starting to work in that department. New signing Tomos Barnes, playing out of position as a centre due to the injury of Cian Davies two weeks ago had a particularly good game with some telling defensive play. Unfortunately, however he suffered a shoulder injury, and had to leave the field of play early.

The second half saw the backline linking well and  Tumble pushed hard into Gorseinon territory looking for the equalising score. Just reward was delivered when winger Dan Davies stormed over for a try to bring the score level at 5-5, the conversion being missed. Things stayed even for a long period and the game was very much stop start in nature due to a number of injuries to Gorseinon players. To their credit however the Cherry and Whites managed to keep the numbers even for as long as they possibly could. Tumble's lineout worked well with athletic back rower Rhys Jones winning clean ball all game. Tumble's second try came from good hard graft and link play between Rhydian Davies and Osian Evans. The ball was shifted to supporting forwards before being worked out wide for openside Rhys Jones to score with five minutes to go. Gorseinon kept coming and coming and some tough defence held them out with substitute Ashley Evans working hard. At last the final whistle sounded and the boys had their just reward, a hard fought 10-5 victory.

The Backs ran the show for Tumble and it was a frustrating watch with the normally dominant forwards not hitting their usual high standards, but a win is a win and this team richly deserves a victory.

Man Of The Match: Aaron Evans at scrum half. He kept working hard in what was a difficult day at the office with the forwards struggling at the breakdown.

Terrific to see two new signings putting on the black and white hoops with prop Jake Roberts and Tomos Barnes both putting in sound performances.

Coaches word:  Nice to get the Win Boys.

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