Having already beaten Aberavon in cup and league, Llandovery made it a season’s treble with a close win over the Wizards, writes Huw S Thomas.

The Drovers enjoyed a five-point win, but with Newport gaining a 41-26 six points victory at RGC, it means that the Tywi Valley side slip to fourth in the SRC table.

It should give them a home draw in the quarter-final play-offs on May 3, probably against Pontypool, who are currently in fifth position.

The performance was much improved from last week’s 42-24 defeat at Swansea but the general feeling was that they let slip a chance for a maximum return.

“We controlled the game for most of the time but let them in at crucial moments,” said Llandovery coach, Euros Evans.

“When we got to 31-14, I thought the bonus point of leading by 15 points or more was well in reach, but we badly lost concentration to hand the 14 points in a frustrating last 10 minutes.

“There is a need to tighten up everywhere before the last two regular season games, away at Cardiff and Bridgend.”

Despite the strong wind, Llandovery lead 19-14 at the break, largely thanks to the brilliance of captain and scrum-half Lee Rees.

His high box kicking into the wind was so accurate that Aberavon were always under severe pressure and he capped a fine 40 minutes with a stunning side-stepping run for an exhilarating try.

At 34 years of age, Rees showed that he is still in top physical condition and it will be nigh on impossible to replace such a talent in the coming years.

Although Llandovery had started off with a corner try from wing Llien Morgan, Aberavon had struck back with two opportunistic scores from fly-half Ed Dunford and centre Brad Roderick to lead 14-5.

Dunford took advantage of a Llandovery failure to hold onto the ball to race in from half-way before Roderick chipped the defence to pick up and run in under the posts.

But tries from centre Adam Warren and Rees, both converted by Jack Maynard who had moved to fly-half to replace an injured Ioan Hughes, made it 19-14 at half-time.

When a delicate chip over the top by Maynard allowed Warren to send the ball to wing Harri Doeland, Aberavon wing Felix Gilbert was shown a yellow card for a blatant push off the ball, it all seemed black for the Wizards.

Things got even worse for Aberavon following a close range line-out try from home hooker Taylor Davies, which put the Drovers 33-14 up and seemingly in complete control of the match.

But a try in the corner from wing Cory Lewis-Jenkins and a yellow card for lock Joe Powell closed the gap to 12 points, before the wing sped away from deep after intercepting an overambitious Maynard pass.

It gave the visitors two losing bonus points and left Llandovery disappointed with their five-point haul rather than the six that had looked on the cards.

Llandovery next travel to Cardiff on Saturday for their penultimate league game of the regular season.

Llandovery

Tries: L Morgan, A Warren, L Rees, H Doel, T Davies

Cons: J Maynard (4)

Aberavon

Tries: C Lewis-Jenkins (2), E Dunford, B Roderick

Cons: E Dunford (2), S Delnevo (2)