Principality Premiership
Cardiff 16
Carmarthen Quins 42
CARMARTHEN Quins produced their best performance of the season to rout their capital city hosts and the 5-try drubbing gave the Quins a bonus point victory to leapfrog Bridgend in the league.
At the start of every season, player’s coaches and supporters, hope for a team performance to remember. This was such a performance.
The Arms Park was draped in sunshine and the Quins were bent on repeating Tuesday night’s victory at Newport.
The opening minutes were fast and furious, with both sides showing their attacking flare. The Quins scrum and lineout were solid throughout and this was the basis of their performance.
It took until midway through the opening half for the scoreboard to come into play with a James Whitingham 20 metre penalty for Cardiff.
This seemed to spur the Quins into a scoring mode, when Iolo Evans found a gap, and slick inter passing gave Kieran Hardy the chance to touch down for a well worked try that Steve Shingler converted. More Quins pressure gave wing Kieran Jones the chance to make 30 metres and cut inside to the supporting Gavin Thomas who chipped on and won the race to score a brilliant try. Shingler added the conversion.
A desperate kick out of defence by the hosts was allowed to bounce and it appeared to be covered but it fell into the hands of Elis Benham who made 30 metres to score against the run of play. Whitingham converted putting the home side into double figures.
The remaining ten minutes of the half saw both side miss scoring chance with defences on top.
Straight from the restart, the Quins went on the offensive and powered up field, and from the resulting line out Josh Helps was able to crash over and replacement Calum Price added the points. The Quins were well on top and play was kept in the Cardiff half.
All the Quins backs handled and after 55 minutes Iolo Evans evaded tacklers to score a fine try for the bonus point score, which Price converted.
The Quins were guilty of overconfidence and lost possession when attacking for the home side to pick and counter attack which led to a Morgan Sieniawski try which was unconverted.
Cardiff were forced to defend for long periods and only heroic tackling prevented a Quins score. From a 20-metre penalty captain Ian Jones elected to take a pot at goal and Price obliged giving the Quins a three score lead.
The final ten minutes belonged to the Quins as the hosts were drained of idea’s and had run out of steam.
After several pairs of hands had contributed to a powerful charge skipper Ian Jones was able to crash over under the posts. Calum Price made it 42 points and the Quins highest score this term with the last kick of the game.
The past week has been a complete reversal of Quins play and the three displays has given the squad much confidence to take on Cross Keys in the Swalec Cup semi final at Aberavon on Saturday.
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