Welsh side make Barum battle for their victory

By chubbard

A FEISTY friendly against Welsh National Two side Kidwelly signalled a taste of things to come at Barnstaple Rugby Club, with the reds eventually claiming a 21-15 victory on Sunday.

The Welsh team were a well-drilled outfit, with the backs certainly giving the Barum backline a run for their money.

In the scrum, the ever dominant Barum frontmen did have the edge, but Kidwelly made them work for it, perhaps a sign of the future as the Chiefs step up into the tougher standard of South West One.

There were moments when Barum showed real quality and echoes of last season's glory days were evident — but there were also some areas of possible weakness, which director of rugby Kevin Squire will have to address if Barum are going to stay afloat in their new league.

But the man in charge insists everything is in hand, and with some exciting new mystery signings on the horizon, Squire is confident Barum can hold their own this season.

The game started on the sluggish side, with the forwards taking turns in making slow yards up the park.

The first try came in the second period of play, off the back of hard work from the forwards, who put scrum-half Dan Ireland in striking distance with a solid ruck on the Kidwelly try-line — Ireland saw the opportunity and darted through a gap to score a classic scrum-half's try.

Neil Giddy, who was in top kicking form at fly-half, then split the posts to make it 7-0.

On the wing Mark Galliford looked constantly threatening and made some good ground whenever he got the ball in hand.

Kidwelly grabbed their first score through their backs, with a lively try from their pacy number 10.

In the third period of play Galliford then powered past the defence to score a well-worked backs try, which Giddy converted.

The game, which had feisty rumblings throughout then escalated into full-on handbags at dawn, with a few punches being exchanged.

The Kidwelly fly-half then scored again, and it looked as though the Welsh side might have gone ahead with a comfortable margin, were it not for the legs of full-back Ben Gatehouse.

He managed to hunt down his opposite number, who was in good space and well on his way to scoring up the wing before Gatehouse nailed him 10 metres from the line.

Kidwelly then managed to bag a drop goal before some intelligent play by Barum led to them being awarded a penalty try after Kidwelly repeatedly collapsed the scrum on their own line.

There was more scrapping in the dying stages of the game, and some of the Barum lads did well to keep their cool in the face of some pretty nasty tactics from the Welsh boys.

Squire said: "It was a useful exercise to see what we need to do if we want to stay up in South West One. It's going to be a very different season to last year in this league, it's not going to be easy by a long shot.

"I've got a few new exciting signings, and I've got my eye on a couple more, but I don't want to say anymore at this stage. Hopefully by the next friendly I'll have some more news on that front, and be playing with some new faces in the line-up."