Dunvant 2nds first home game of the year saw Pontyberem visit for a friendly game scheduled in between league fixtures. The visiting team were lead be Player and Coach Darren Godard who has returned to his home club after many years at Dunvant. It was good to see Darren back at Broadarce, although it was a reminder on how much of a nuisance he is to the opposition. Amazingly Darren stayed on the pitch and did not receive a yellow card which was normal practice when in a Dunvant shirt.

Dunvant were first on the board with a penalty from Dannie White. However this was soon cancelled out with one from Pontyberem. The score remained at 3-3 for 10 to 15mins. Then a passage of play, which saw Dunvant fail time and time again to clear their lines and put the ball into touch, resulted in pressure being put on their defence again and again. However this pressure could have been released when Scott McGregor called and raised his arm for a mark, the referee did not hear or see it and Scott was soon surrounded by attacking players. Pontyberem finally converted the pressure into points with a try and conversion taking them into a 3-10 lead. Dunvant’s young team then seemed to lose control and dropped their heads and within the next 10 mins the visiting team score and converted twice to race them on to a 21 point lead.

Half time saw the experience of Nathan Vaughan come onto the field after a long time out injured which galvanised the team and almost immediately we started to look threatening. Runs by Nathan and Cory Bennett breaking the defensive line and getting Dunvant on the front foot, which started to release space and when Huw Samuel put youth winger Evan Taylor into the open he showed determination to squeeze into the corner near left hand corner. Dunvant continued to build pressure and were camped on the Pontyberem line and eventually squeezed over under the posts for their second try from Dunvant’s excellent and nibble new scrum half, the conversion was put over by Dannie and the points difference was narrowing. Pontyberem however did hit back with a penalty goal.

Dunvant were further strengthen with young Conner Phillips getting on to the field for the first time this year after a broken bone in his foot, and it was Dunvant that had their tails up again making ground and line breaks through centre pairing Michael Arnold and Rhys George. However it was a clean break that saw Nathan Vaughan go under the posts untouched and with the easy conversion took Dunvant to within a score 22-27 with 10 mins to go. Nevertheless Pontyberem managed to get possession from the resulting kick off and move to the edge of Dunvant’s 22m line. Some great skills from Darren Godard saw him slip the ball to bypass the rush defence and release his back line which resulted in the Pontyberem winger scoring the last points of the game in the far right hand corner.

Although Dunvant rallied and came close to snatching a victory in the second half it was again a 20min spell that defined the result. Next week we are back in the league away to Waunarlwydd which will require an 80min effort to come away with a result.