West Wales Raiders welcomed The Royal Logistics to Stebonheath Park on Saturday (Mar 18) for the first of their brand new annual shield matches.
Centre Carl Leyshon got the game off to a cracking start with an 80 metre run to score the first try. Loose forward Aaron Lewis added the conversion. The next fifteen minutes saw both teams locked in a battle of strength. The tally of mistakes and penalties from the home side then saw the Logistics have back to back sets. It was only the strong defence, which kept the away side from scoring. With only ten minutes remaining of the first half and the away side having the majority of the ball it took a final play for loose forward Aaron Lewis to push over to score the second try of the match. Minutes later The Raiders went for an early kick and pressed hard to force a mistake in which captain Nathan Beck went over for the third of the game. Aaron Lewis added the conversion. With the half coming to an end and The Raiders on their last tackle the Logistics seemed to switch off and Dafydd Phillips went in under the posts. Lewis added the two points with a conversion.
At half time The West Wales Raiders led The Royal Logistics 24 – 0
The second half began in a similar vein to the first with The Raiders scoring first. Under 16’s winger James James Smith scored from a well worked kick from the first tackle on his own line, which bounced straight in to the his hands for him to race in from 60 metres. Lewis was on form converting another kick at goal. The final twenty minutes became a very physical encounter resulting in a high penalty count for both teams. A small mistake in the home side’s defence allowed the Logistics in for the final points of the game.
The match ended West Wales Raiders 30 – Royal Logistics 6.
Head coach Jon Baz Ellis said:
It was an entertaining game for the crowd but a coaches nightmare, we lacked cohesion in our structure and didn’t play any heads up rugby league, however there was some spectacular tries scored and a fair few players stood out massively. I though Shaun Tennant played exceptionally well for his first game of rugby league. A win is a win and it’s great moral for the boys to win 3 out of 3. We would like to thank the Royal Logistics for coming down and being a part of the first of our annual shield. Also we would like to thank Roger Bowen & Hefin Williams from Amigo Cyclin for being the match day sponsors and hope they enjoyed their day in the media suite.
All Photos: Byron Williams
