Ammanford 20 Maesteg Quins 27
Ammanford welcomed table topping Maesteg Harlequins to the Rec knowing that there was a big challenge ahead. The boys stood up to the challenge and only just dropped short. Again Ammanford lost outside half Ceri Morris early in the game, this time with a twisted ankle.
Ammanford missed an early pen chance before a penalty kick into the corner allowed the visitors to get the first score on the board with a catch and drive, 0-5. There was a great deal of Quins pressure and in a back and fore kicking game the visitors were getting the upper hand. The visitors loose head prop was allowed to get away with a great deal of angled scrummaging which eventually allowed the visitors to win a penalty try, 0-12.
With a quarter of an hour left of the half Ammanford got their game going winning a lineout on the Quins 22m line. The ball was moved into midfield, from the resulting ruck the ball was fed to blindside wing Steffen Howells who punched a hole in the defence, the ball quickly found its way to full back Jake Evans who went over in the corner, 5 -12.
From the kick off Ammanford powered back into the Quins half. Taking a quick tap penalty after tap penalty the home side had the visitors at sixes and sevens, with flanker Owain Davies powering over but the simple conversion was missed and the half finished 10-12.
The second half started well for Quins where some slick passing saw them go 60m but a last ditch tackle at the base of the posts was deemed high by the referee, Jake Evans was yellow carded and Quins were awarded a penalty try, 10-19. This seemed a hash decision.
A major incident in the game occurred when second row Jake Baker put in a high tackle, the visiting No 8 took umbrage flying in and hitting Baker followed by a kick. The referee rightly yellow carded Baker but missed the kick and only yellow carded the visitor. Hedd-Wyn Jones complained and was rewarded with a yellow card. The referee decided to give the visitors the penalty which they slotted to extend the lead, 10-22.
Down to 13 men Ammanford went hard at the Quins winning a 10m scrum, a good pick up by Davies fed scrum half Alex Davies and a long pass found Evans who went over for his second try. Unfortunately a second easy penalty was missed, 15-22
Trying hard to get back into the game, Ammanford attacked from deep in their half. The ball was moved wide only for wing Dafydd Pritchard to be hit late, this was again missed by the ref and from the next scrum he compounded the error by penalising Ammanford tight head for standing in the scrum when he had actually been lifted off the ground. They kicked to the corner and from the lineout drove over for their fourth try, 15-27.
Ammanford would not lay down coming hard they won a 10m line out from the catch and drive Liam Baker used his size and strength to go over in the corner, 20-27. Though unable to finish the job off at least scoring their fourth try and getting back within 7 gave Ammanford a 2 bonus point loss.
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