Third league defeat on bounce for hosts
DIVISION THREE EAST A LLANHILLETH ................5 MONMOUTH..................32
LLANHILLETH remain rooted to the foot of the table following their third straight league defeat of the season at the hands of Monmouth.
The hosts had their moments during the encounter, none more so than up front with captain Tim Tilling and prop partner Steve Faletau causing problems in the scrum with the support of a powerful pack.
Despite Llanhilleth taking the game to their opponents, Monmouth always looked the more likely to open the scoring with free-running fullback Lee Goddard a constant danger and one such break resulted in wing Sean Thomas going over in the corner, outside-half Paul Emanuelli missing the conversion.
The visitors soon added to the scoreline, good hands across the backline saw Goddard cross in the opposite corner, again Emanuelli failing with the kick.
The hosts enjoyed some breaks out of defence led by Paul Annetts, who was a constant threat with ball in hand, also James Foreshew, who, although living on scraps, caused opposite wing Thomas problems when he have ball in hand.
Dan Williams added a further try before the interval to extend the East Gwent outfit’s advantage, but Emanuelli was having a day to forget as his kick did failed to add to the score.
The second half saw Llanhilleth lose Chris Evans in the centre and a shuffle of the backs and pack failed to prevent the guests extending their lead through scrum-half Dan White, further tries from man of the match Goddard and Emanuelli, who finally found his kicking boots by firing over his first conversion to put the gloss on the win.
Despite dominating on the pitch, the referee spoke to the visitors’ captain on a few occasions about players backchatting and the official sent a player to the sin-bin but not before he had sent a Monmouth coach to the dugout. But the hosts had the final say, scrum-half Dean Pitt returning to the fray from his sin-binning to take a quick tap penalty and crossing in the corner for an unconverted consolation try.