Quins Win Tight Game

Carmarthen Quins 17 RGC 14

Saturday 29th January 2022

Head Coach Ceri Jones saw his side compete against the league leaders in a tight 80 minutes.

“At this level, especially away from home it’s about competing and being in with a chance of winning in the last 10 minutes, and today we were.  The next stage of our development is to take our chances.  On another day one of our penalties go over and we draw the game, so these margins are small.

In terms of performance, we gave a good account of ourselves against the league leaders, and we showed in our game what we are trying to develop in terms of our play. It was gutsy at times, and both sides will look back and think a bit more precision could have led to more tries.

“We had that driving line out that we didn’t capitalise on, but then did score one and had a lineout in the corner but didn’t win it.  These missed opportunities can change the game.

Again, we had to make some changes early when Sam Hughes gets injured, but I think we adapted well.  The backline was a new one, with Harri Evans coming back in after a spell out, and Matt Buchanan starting in centre, and we showed a good account of ourselves in that area”

“The result didn’t go our way, but the performance was an improvement, so we will look to build on this heading into the Merthyr game, and look for a home win next week”

It was RGC that started on the attack, and that resulted with an early penalty but Dion Jones knocked it wide.

From that point Quins began to play some fast ball, looking to shift the ball wide, as RGC were being tested in defence.

The line was broken when prop Ben Leung made a burst, and ran through to score the first try. Steff Marshall hit the extras.

Carmarthen were having most of the possession, and RGC were being stretched but managing to come up with the answers to keep the score to 7 points.

The driving maul was being utilised by Quins, but on several occasions RGC ended up on the right side of the referee’s whistle.

It was a bit of an arm wrestle as both packs looked to gain the upper hand, and it was RGC’s turn to fire up the maul attack as they had a couple of rumbles to the line, but the home side managed to stop them on 3 occasions.

Jessie Williams broke the gain line, as RGC set up another attack and were give an opportunity to reduce the score before the break, but a long-range Dion Jones penalty dropped short of the posts.

RGC game out after the break with attacking intent, and looked to get the ball wide. Clow made a decent break down the wing.

Marhsall extended Quins lead with a penalty.

The Gogs attacking endeavour was rewarded when Brodie Coghlan went over for the try at the pack of the pack.  Dion Jones nudged to conversion over.

Both sided looked to attack with ball in hand, and both sides were making errors which stopped the momentum.

It was Quins turn to use the driving maul with good effect when they went over with a Tovlin try. Marshall added the conversion for a 10-point lead.

Jordan Jones went close to scoring but was held up on the line, after some good work from Quins.

The move of the match went to Afon Basgshaw after the scrum stood strong, and he then received the ball and created some space to break through the gap to touchdown.  Dion Jones conversion closed the gap to 3 points with 10 minutes to play.

Quins showed some game management as the looked to keep the play in the RGC half, keeping RGC pinned back with a number of kicks. Marshall had a chance to increase the lead but he missed a penalty.

In the final minutes, the visitors tried to create a chance, but after a number of phases around halfway, Quins won the penalty and kicked the ball out for the victory.