Players Visit St Agnes Church

Today, Daryl Thomas [aka Trigger], Neil White [aka Chalky] and myself [aka The Swankman] visited St Agnes Church in Port Talbot to help the church put up their Christmas tree's and also to decorate our very own 'Wizards Tree'.

Chris Davies [left] and Neil White place star on Wizards Tree

The idea was put forward from Allison Murray and Mair John that each player of Aberavon RFC would bring in a black or red decoration for a Christmas tree and then decorate a tree in St Agnes. So ... today along with Mair and Katie John we went to work.

Daryl Thomas and Neil White help put up Christmas Trees

Still trying to put up 1 of 6 trees

All together we put up around 6 trees for other members of the church to decorate and of course our own tree. I must be honest, I did not do much as Daryl and Neil had it all covered, they were enjoying their time. I swept the floors and watched haha.

The trees were real pine trees that needed to be placed in buckets and filled with stones. At the end, the Church looked really nice and ready for Christmas. It was great to be involved in a community event like this and it was also great to see members of the Port Talbot community pulling together.

Another tree done and that lady has my broom

Thanks to Mair, Katie and Allison for helping out today and also to Neil and Daryl for their work also. A big thank you to the St Agnes Church for a warm welcome and their hospitality. Hope to see you all again soon.

Wizards League [Secondary Schools - Round 5]

There was an excellent fixture in Dyffryn V Glanfields this week at Taibach RFC, with Dyffryn eventually winning 29-26. The game was full of big tackles, skills and plenty of try’s. A very good indication that secondary schools rugby is getting better. The Y7 league is very close at the moment as Dyffryn need to play St Joes in the remaining fixture. If St Joes wish to become Y7 champions they must beat Dyffryn by 16 points. This game will be played in January 2014. The Y8 game between Dyffryn and Glandfields was very much one sided with Dyffryn winning 56-5. Dyffyrn’s Y8 team have been far to strong this season obtaining an undefeated record. However, there is still one more match to play and that is also against St Joes. St Joes have not won a game in this seasons campaign yet, but they could cause an upset. Regardless, the Y8 league title looks set to go to Dyffryn. Once these fixtures have been played, there will be a 10 and 7 aside competitions held at Aberavon RFC in the 2014 end of the season. This will give schools an opportunity to field two teams in the competition for an opportunity to win both competitions.

Wizards League: Round 5

The top of both the rugby and netball leagues tell a similar story with the same schools battling it out at the top. St Therese and Tywyn remain unbeaten beating Central [10-4] and Baglan [11-1] respectively.  Similarly, Tywyn and Coed Hirwaun are unbeaten at the top of the rugby league beating Baglan [30-0] and Groes [30-0] respectively. St Joes recorded their first win of the season against Cymmer Fed [15-45] which was a very good game. Cymmer played some very good rugby. Cymmer, Baglan and Eastern are yet to find their first win, however, the improvements in the all of the teams performances are positive. Similar story with netball with Traethmelyn and Groes still waiting for a win which will come soon. Sandfields won both of the games against Traethmelyn winning 10-25 in rugby and 1-11 in netball.

Please follow @AberavonRDO on Twitter and Facebook for updates #WizardsLeague

Central Junior School Tour of Aberavon RFC

Aberavon RFC welcomed Central Junior School at the Talbot Athletic Ground last week which was primarily for a photo shoot for the TATA Steel program that I run in the community.

I took the Central Junior School Y4 children around the ground to show them what kind of activities go on. I showed them the dreaded scrummaging machine [not so dreading for me, as I do not do a lot on it ;)] and also showed them the 'tump'. Now the 'tump' is the green area behind the Pump Supplies stand where the players and I are not too fond of. Its a place where we get hampered with fitness training. I showed the children exercises that we do such as; farmers walk with a tractor tyre, tyre flipping and the infamous prowler pushes - 'death by prowler'. A few children were able to have a go too. They enjoyed this part and had fun with taking part, they also had lots of questions.

We continued around the ground, then stopping at the changing rooms where I took 10 children at a time into the changing rooms and gave them a feeling of what it was like to be there on a game day - telling them about the music, the jokes amongst the players [clean ones of course]. I also showed them the gym, where sometimes we go as a team to get fit using weights. I showed them different functional exercise that we use specific for rugby.

The children again had many questions which were very entertaining and interesting. I would say they had a very good time at Aberavon RFC and the 50+ children that took part were very well behaved and were a privilege to have at the club.