Cardiff condemned to a third straight defeat
CARDIFF............................8 ABERAVON......................24
SIMON KING made no excuses after his side were outplayed by Aberavon at the Arms Park, crashing to a third straight defeat in the Principality Premiership.
The Blue and Blacks made a fine start and were ahead through Richard Smith’s early try and also led 8-6 at the turnaround. But tries from Sam Williams, David Pritchard and Matthew Jenkins won it for the Wizards.
The hosts included six Cardiff Blues players in their side and, for the first 10 minutes of the game, it looked as if they might just be too strong for the Wizards with their early attacking rewarded with a try for one of those Blues players, winger Smith, converted by fly-half Gareth Davies.
Cardiff had also suffered back to back Premiership defeats to Llandovery and Cross Keys, conceding 40 points each time. And the frailties that cost them those games soon became apparent.
Following Williams’ first-half try, it took Aberavon a little over 10 minutes following the restart to take the lead, a quickly taken penalty by scrum-half Pritchard catching the entire home side off guard, with fly-half James Garland converting.
Thereafter, Cardiff never really looked like getting back into the game and, after a penalty from Garland on 71 minutes, Aberavon rounded off an impressive performance two minutes from time with a converted try for centre Jenkins. Cardiff: J Loxton; R Smith, T Isaacs, N Griffiths (W Rees Hole 51) C Young; G Davies, L Jones; R Lewis, (T Davies 51), M Breeze (capt) (J Deabrue 80), A Rees (J Jones 74), M Normandale, J Murphy (B Thomas 68), N White (J Viggers 2), J Groves, J Sheekey Scorers: Try – R Smith; con – G Davies Aberavon: J Phillips; J Baker (J Gage 78), J Thomas, C Clement, M Jenkins; J Garland, D Pritchard; R Jenkins, I Davies, J Thomas, B Davies, S Williams (A Beard 59), L Purnell (N Brown 68), C Davies (R Forse 74), J Tomalin-Reeves Scorers: Tries – S Williams, D Pritchard, M Jenkins; cons – J Garland (2), pen – J Garland Referee: Leighton Hodges (WRU) Principality man of the match: Jay Baker (Aberavon)