Pembroke Dock Quins 10 pts.

St. Clears 15

The Quins were hit badly with withdrawals, due to work commitments and holidays, making no less than eight changes from the previous week at Cardigan.

The opening 20 minutes were dominated by the visitors, but the Quins’ defence was resolute, with prop Dean Wilcox carrying on where he left off last week with another outstanding display.

Thomas Doyle, Jason Keates, Alex Pierce and Barry Parsons, playing out of position at scrum-half, worked tirelessly to keep the Saints at bay.

With 25 minutes gone, it was the Quins who took the lead in one of their rare forays into the Saints half.

The visitors were caught offside and outside-half Lewis Davies, who was having another fine game, duly obliged.

The Quins’ lead, however, lasted only a few minutes as the Saints hit back almost immediately with a fine try by fullback Lewis Price, who also added the extras to his own try to put the visitors 7-3 into the lead.

The pressure was still on the Quins and right on half-time the Saints increased their lead when Price kicked a penalty to send his side in 10-3 at the interval.

The hosts were still up against it at the start of the second half, but as earlier, they held firm. It was difficult to see where a Quins score was going to come from, though, but a series of fine relieving kicks from Lewis Davies eased the pressure and when the Quins were awarded a penalty, the outside-half put the ball right in the corner to give his side a chance of a score, but from the resulting lineout, the Quins were turned over and the chance was lost.

They were soon to be punished even more when Price crossed for his second try to stretch the lead to 15-3.

The Quins, though, with just under 10 minutes to go, did manage to score a try when once again a superb kick from Davies put the visitors under pressure.

Right wing Josh Turner, as he did the previous week, scooped the ball up, but was halted short of the line, but with the Saints defence all at sea, Davies used his strength to force his way over close to the uprights.

He added the conversion to close the gap to 15-10.

Any hopes that the Quins had of pinching the game came to nothing, though, as they were soon back defending, and it speaks volumes for their effort and commitment that they held out despite having severe disruption in their ranks.

Quins team: Paul Jonkers, Sam Richards, Jason Keates, Thomas Doyle, Josh Turner, Lewis Davies, Barry Parsons (capt), Dean Wilcox, Martin Culley, Peter Roach, Darren Potter, Stefan Miller, Alex Pierce, James Gardener, Stefan Halward.