Fixture

Cardiff Quins travelled to the Welfare ground and gave “the Village” the tough test that their recent results suggested they would. This was a much-improved team to the one that Abercwmboi played in the first match of the season and they fronted up on one of the worst days (weather-wise) that many people can remember. In fact, it was testament to the work done to improve the field drainage by Shapewright Services over the past two summers that the match was played at all.

Abercwmboi chose to play into the strong wind in the first half and Quins took advantage of this to score the first try through their lively scrum-half. However, the home team soon replied with a try of their own from returning centre Dylan Fiddler, converted by number 10 Jordan Rees and they quickly followed this with a second from full back Mathew Jones to take a 12 – 5 lead. Quins were again rewarded for their good play with another try from their strong number 8, before Dylan Fiddler and Matty Jones added tries (one converted by centre Paul Edwards) to give Abercwmboi a bonus point before half time. The visitors were not to be outdone and scored a converted try on the stroke of half-time to bring the score to 24 – 17.

The second half was very much one-way traffic with Abercwmboi scoring a further five tries through Josh Richards, Geraint Cutlan, Scott Cutlan, Paul Edwards and Mathew jones (completing his hat-trick) and three conversions from Geraint Cutlan. Though Quins had the final word scoring a converted try at the end to give themselves a deserved try bonus point. The final score was a credit to the positive approach and skills of both teams on such a terrible day also to the squad players of Abercwmboi, who really stepped up to the mark in the absence of a number of regular first teamers and they will have given the coaches a lot of problems in the next selection meeting.