The west wales raiders travelled to Aldershot for their last preseason game against the Royal Engineers. This was set to be their toughest game so far as the Engineers are the best army team for the last 16 years.

With an early kick off the game began with the west Wales Raiders having most of the possession, even though the majority of the possession went to the raiders they couldn't penetrate the Engineers try line due to good defence and forced errors. The engineer responded with a direct attacking approach and the raiders were found wanting in defence,two quick fired tries on the 8th and 12th minute put the raiders on the back foot,this showed the naivety of the young raiders team as they tried to force plays to try and catch up resulting in mistakes that the engineers punished them for with a further two tries,making the score Royal Engineers 20-0 Raiders after twenty minutes. After this crazy ten minutes the raiders found their composure and managed to stop any further points being scored and applied for more pressure on the Engineers with a close couple of calls, the teams went in at half time with the score still 20-0.

In the second half the Raiders came out trying to play catch up rugby league and this worked against them as they again forced errors in the Engineers half resulting in a slick and structured Engineers attack capitalising and scoring first and second in the early minutes of the second half. The Raiders frustration was further increased when hooker Daf Phillips was sin binned for an alleged shoulder charge but this spurred on the raiders to dig deep and young power house second row Archie Snook smashed in under the posts for a try, conversion was added by Aaron Lewis. After another period of sustained Raiders pressure debutant prop Sam Owen hit a great line as well as 3 Engineers defenders who come off worse in the collision allowing Sam to score his first try in raiders colours, conversion missed. The raiders were now in the ascendancy but unfortunately debutant loose forward Owain Davies was deemed to have knocked the ball on over the line and on the return play Ben Swift was hit with a high tackle resulting in a yellow card for the Engineers prop. With minutes remaining the raiders managed to find space from their own try line with a great kick and under 16s winger James Smith was knocked off the ball at the point of scoring. In the dying minutes the Engineers put a play on the left hand side and what looked like a forward pass and the linesman indicated so the play was allowed to continue resulting in a try for the Engineers scoring almost unopposed.

Final Score Royal Engineers 36-10 West Wales Raiders

Head coach Jon Ellis added " The score was a fair reflection of how the game went, Engineers were a class outfit, the Raiders improved in areas we had discussed and analysed from the week previously. Again we had lots of debutants making the total number over 40 different players putting on the raiders jersey during the preseason games which is what this year is all about, two of the new debutants stood out with great performances, the first being Sam Owen and the second Owain Davies who is a credit to himself in his approach to the club, the game and his approach to life. The spirit in the camp is building and as a squad we are all very positive including myself for a change."