Wizards struggle past lowly Quins

ABERAVON kept up the pressure on the leaders in Tier One of the Principality Premiership with what was eventually a narrow victory over bottom side Carmarthen Quins.

On a glorious sunny day in south Wales, the Wizards were the game’s dominant force at The Park as they went into the interval with a commanding 19-0 lead.

Despite an early yellow card for Joe TomalinReeves, the visitors scored three tries before the break courtesy of prop Alex Jeffries, David Pritchard and Stef Andrews – with former Llandovery outside-half James Garland converting the first two as the Quins struggled to spark.

The Carmarthen-based outfit are yet to win since the league was split in two and any hopes of a comeback were hit on the game’s resumption.

Ben Davies’ try wasn’t improved upon by Garland, but at 24-0 Aberavon were pretty much home and hosed.

Aled Thomas did finally get the Quins on the scoreboard, but it still seemed like only one result was possible.

The home side had other ideas though and they came roaring back to set up a nervy finale. Rhys Williams and Morgan Allen crossed for two further tries and the extras left just three points between the teams.

Suddenly it was all Quins, but in the end they just couldn’t do quite enough to get back into things and fell short by a narrow margin despite two conversions from Craig Evans and one from Aled Thomas.

Aberavon’s win sealed a bonus-point success though they still have a long way to go to get close to leaders Merthyr.