NARBERTH travelled to Maesteg Quins on Saturday (Apr 8), with a slightly changed team due to several injuries picked up the previous week.
Quins had a big pack of forwards and dominated the game early on particularly at the set piece where they gave the Otters a difficult time at the scrums.
This early superiority, however, did not create any points and it was Narberth who were first on the scoreboard when a beautiful angled run by centre Ianto Griffiths saw him break the Quins defence and race in from twenty metres out to score a fine try under the posts which co-centre Nick Gale converted (0-7).
Quins continued their set piece dominance and had the Otters pinned on their try line for a considerable period and only dogged defence by Narberth kept them out. Then somewhat against the run of play Quins attempted to run the ball and looked destined to score but Gale intercepted a pass and ran the full length of the pitch to score a try which he duly converted (0-14).
Quins eventually got some points on the board when a tap penalty was quickly taken and their second row barged his way over in the corner for an unconverted try (5-14).
Quins continued to have the upper hand for the remainder of the half but there was no further score before half time.
Early in the second half Otters Prop Sean Janes was injured and was replaced by George Rossiter. A loose kick out of defence by the Quins full back was caught by full back Ashley Sutton and he jinked his way up field before linking with wing Josh Evans who when tackled passed back to Sutton who got the ball away to supporting scrum half Ben Thomas and he ran a good twenty metres and just managed to stretch over the try line for an excellent score which Gale again converted (5-21).
Quins continued to put the Otters under a lot of pressure but a big effort in defence by the whole Narberth team kept the home team from scoring, much to the disappointment of their vociferous supporters.
From a lineout near to the Quins 22 metre line the Otters won the ball and set up a driving maul which took them all the way to the Quins line where Narberth No.8 Roy Osborn dived over for their bonus point try which Gale again converted (5-28).
The Otters then made some substitutions with Lewys Gibby moving from the wing and replacing Thomas at scrum half, James Price took over on the wing and Harvey Jones, making his debut for the Narberth 1st team, replaced Ianto Griffiths at centre. Slightly earlier Tom Clarke had replaced hooker Kyle Hamer and Josh Hamer was replaced by Caine Rees-Jones.
The bigger Quins pack were now beginning to tire and from a scrum ten metres out Osborn picked up and passed to Gibby who went in under the posts for a fifth try converted by Gale.
With the last move of the game after another break by Sutton and forward drives by Clarke and Osborn once again Gibby was on hand to score a fine try which needless to say was converted by Gale to make the final score a convincing win for the Otters by 42 points to 5.
