Supporters at Carmarthen Park on Thursday evening, 11th December, were treated to a thrilling second half of rugby as Carmarthen Quins and Cardiff went head-to-head in something of a try-fest to secure victory in the tenth round of Super Rygbi Cymru.
A hattrick from winger Callum Woolley brought Quins back into the game having seen Cardiff take the lead in the second half.
Despite a mammoth defensive effort from the homeside, the penalty count ultimately was too great and a late moment of magic from the visitors saw Cardiff seal the deal with a try at the death.
Reflecting on the defeat, Director of Rugby Steff Thomas said; “The boys are really hard on themselves and are really disappointed. A couple of individual errors, one missed tackle after a really good defensive effort and that cost us the game.
“It’s a little bit harsh, and we had key moments in the last two minutes on the attack where our accuracy wasn’t quite where we wanted it to be. There were definitely chances to score and win the game.
“We’re little bit disappointed but overall, on the back of a penalty count like we had on our home ground tonight, you’re never going to win games – or certainly make it difficult to win games. That’s really the disappointing take away for us tonight.
“Cardiff were a good team, credit to them, they won the game tonight, it’s important to say that. In terms of our discipline, we spoke about it at half time, we talked about being squeaky clean not giving silly penalties away. I think we did that, but maybe as the boys got a little bit fatigued were maybe trying to take shortcuts later on in the game. That let us down and caught us out eventually.”
Quins are now in fourth place in the Super Rygbi Cymru league table (on 31), Cardiff have leapfrogged into third position (33), while Ebbw Vale (48) and Llandovery (43) lead the way in first and second place respectively.
Steff continued; “It’s a tough one to take tonight if I’m really honest, but nevertheless we bounce back, double header against the Drovers to look forward to. There’s no better way to bounce back really!”
Quins have won the same number of games this season as were won in total last season.
Steff went on to say: “Winning six is a great start for us, we have to capitalise on it, we can’t dwell on the fact that we’ve reached the six. As I said at the start of the season, we were hoping to break into the top half of the table, and then to get into that top five / top six you need to be winning ten games, so we’ve still got a bit of work to do yet.
“Ultimately, we’re a young group, the boys are working really hard, and I’m really proud of them. They showed lots of character as a young group tonight to go toe-to-toe with Cardiff and push the all the way.”
Next game: Carmarthen Quins v Llandovery, Saturday 20th December kick-off 14:30
