TORFAEN Tigers warmed up for their impending Conference South season with a healthy 44-14 win over Cardiff City RL on a wet night in Cwmbran, writes Ian Golden.

The Tigers, who will be travelling to the experienced Leicester Storm outfit in their first game on March 21, were given a tough test by their Welsh Conference opponents.

However, a burst of tries in the third quarter of the game, when attacking downhill on the tough Cwmbran slope, settled things.

Both sides had their chances in the first 20 minutes with Cardiff short of the line of one occasion and Torfaen having a try chalked off for a forward pass.

However an unconverted try in the corner from Torfaen's Liam Silver then a second from Dai Thomas, who converted himself, made it 10-0 at the break.

Cardiff didn't take much time to pull one back. Joe Davies dived over the line from dummy half and Dan Henderson converted.

But Torfaen addressed the balance straight away. Andrew Barlow crossed in the corner and Thomas did well to kick the conversion from the sideline to make it 16-6.

Full back Ryan Evans added the score when he raced from beyond the half-way line to score under the sticks before Thomas added another not long after the restart. Thomas converted both to make the scoreline a lot more comfortable for the hosts.

Cardiff scored twice more in the second half to rightly make the score more creditable. with Owain Davies and Callam McCabe doing well do score against the hill for two unconverted scores.

However Torfaen sealed their win after one from Corey Clarke in the corner, scored in between the final two Cardiff tries, and then finished the evening off with a 50 metre effort from Sean Hazard and a well worked try from Jordan Thomas in the corner. Andrew Barlow converted the final two tries to add to the total.