Fixture

After a very close encounter in the reverse fixture at Crickmarren field earlier in the season, when Saints came out on top by a single point, there was an air of tense and nervous anticipation evident in Saints early play and penalties conceded were the most significant feature of their play. One successful kick was the only result however, despite a great deal of territorial advantage and the game actually turned on a red card handed out to Saints influential centre, Mike Georgiau after 25 minutes, which clearly unsettled the home side and threatened to destabilise their dangerous back division.

In fact the setback had quite the opposite affect and Saints responded positively having struggled in the early stages, putting Pembroke on the back foot, producing first, a successful penalty from full back Geraint Jones and then two tries in quick succession from scrum half Llyr Ebsworth and then fly half Shane Morgan, both converted by Geraint to establish a 17 point to 3 lead at the half time break.

Five minutes after the restart Geraint’s boot added a further three points from a penalty, to extend the lead to seventeen points, but this only served to trigger a spirited response from Pembroke and good work from their back division, aided slightly by the home side’s one man defensive deficiencies, produced an excellent try in the corner to reduce the arrears to 12 points.

The visitors continued to press, with the result still in the balance but another successful penalty from Geraint with an excellent kick from some distance restoring the lead to 15 points appeared to take the wind out of their sails and despite the one man disadvantage Saints again raised their game to gain the upper hand.

A further successful kick from Geraint, from a penalty which resulted in a yellow card for the visitors prop and two quick tries in the next fifteen minutes, a second from Llyr Ebsworth and then number 8 Tom Rees, effectively settled matters and although there were a few tussles and scuffles in the remaining soggy twenty minutes the final score of 35 points to 8 was unchanged and a hard earned bonus point well deserved.