Saturday the 11th of October saw Fall Bay playing South Gower away in the first local derby game of the season. Despite South Gower having a tough start to the season with regard to results, where local derbies are concerned form normally exits via the window.

The team on Saturday saw the return of Richard Furneaux from two weeks warm weather training and all the gym work had obviously paid off as the No 3 jersey was noticeably fuller!

The early exchanges were a clear indicator of how the game was going to develop, with South Gower playing through the forwards based on a pick and go strategy around the rucks and mauls and Fall Bay playing a more open style of rugby.

Despite a number of strong early runs by Fall Bay with James Elliot to the fore, the first points came 15 minutes into the game. Dan “Lynda Carter” Davies, this week playing at 10, offloaded on the South Gower 22 to Richard Furneaux on the charge, who was tackled just short of the try line. The offload in the tackle enabled Steve Hewitt to score the first try of the game near the posts. Kirk Reardon this week playing at fullback adding the conversion.

Further pressure from Fall Bay led to a penalty being awarded on the South Gower 10 metre line wide on the left of the field. The penalty was converted by Kirk Reardon to make the score 7-0 with 18 minutes gone.

35 minutes in, the try of the game was scored, all started by Dai “Clean off it” Thomas starting his first game on the wing. “Clean off it” gathered the ball near his own 22 and set off on a storming run up the touchline. Excellent support from Nick Holland and Ross Button carried the move into the South Gower 22. Here the move appeared to have broken down as the ball went loose and was kicked across field by South Gower. The kick was gathered by “Gyppo” Berry who set off on an arcing run to outstrip the cover and score a try. Kirk Reardon again adding the conversion to make the score 17-0 to Fall Bay, which is how it stayed until half time.

The second half saw South Gower start with a head of steam, obviously a good “ass kicking” at half time had produced the desired effect. All the early pressure came from South Gower through the driving play of the forwards but some excellent defence from Fall Bay prevented a score.

Ten minutes into the second half saw Richard Furneaux depart the field. Obviously for such a fine tuned athlete the recent warm weather training had caused the fitness levels to peak far too early.

South Gower continued the early pressure and 15 minutes into the second half were rewarded with a well deserved try. With the conversion bouncing off the post this brought the score to 17-5. From the restart Fall Bay went on the attack. Between some good driving play from the Forwards and good passing  from the backs, Andrew Evans was sent on a lung busting two metre run to the line for what was to prove to be the winning try. Again Kirk added the extra two points to make the score 24-5 with 20 minutes remaining.

The remainder of the game became a penalty riddled affair with Fall Bay conceding a number of penalties at the breakdown area. This allowed South Gower to gain territory and continue with the pick and drive tactics which were proving quite effective at this stage. Despite some excellent tackling from forwards and backs alike South Gower were able to add two more tries, converting one to make the final score 24-17 to Fall Bay.