Mumbles Pirates at the Dunvant Festival

Clash of the Titans

A glorious sunny Sunday in Dunvant and an even bigger feast of rugby. After a slow start, with losses in the first two games to London Irish (25-10 with tries by Will and Joe) and Farnham 2 (10-5 with a try by Sean A), the Pirates charged into action for the third.

Their opponents were Farnham 1 and revenge for the slights of Saturday were the order of the day. Playing to 'local rules' the Pirates aggressive defence and committed counter rucking drove the tourists off the ball on many occasions. Once the Pirates scored the first try Farnham never looked like recovering. The Pirates finished winning 10-0 with tries from Will and Liam.

For the final group game the Pirates lined up against a very good Pencoed team yet to concede a try in their games. The Pirates competed at the breakdown, but were out powered and gave away a number of tries. The match featured a mix of committed tackling and rucking, but some disorganised defensive alignment and missed tackles. A few heads dropped leading to a final scoreline of 6-0.

The groups favoured the Pirates who finished second in group 2. They were then drawn to face Pencoed again in the semi-final. After a collective drawing of breath the Pirates marched out ready for battle.

Pencoed scored early, but were soon driven backwards by more awesome defensive effort from the Pirates. A full bloodied contest at the breakdown led to Pirates ball, through the back's hands to Will to finish for the first try scored against Pencoed. The Pirates pressed again and had a try disallowed. When the referee blew for the end of the game the scores were tied 5-5, so the teams changed ends and played extra time seeking the 'golden try'.

Pencoed started well and were denied a number of times by crunching team tackles with the Pirates putting their bodies on the line to hold out. After more than 15 minutes of defending the Pirates could repel boarders no more and were finally beaten by a try from Pencoed's stand out player. Plaudits for the Pirates came from Pencoed who knew they'd been in a very tough game and from Dunvant who thought it was the game of the day.

Pencoed went on to beat London Irish in the final and the only try they conceded on the day was to the Pirates.

All in a fantastic squad performance across all the games on Saturday and Sunday with a total of around three hours of quality rugby played.