ABERYSTWYTH RFC signed off 2019 with a 21-7 defeat to Division One West leaders Newcastle Emlyn in what was a cracking, full-blooded encounter between two very committed teams at Plascrug.

Both teams were forced into changes to their line-ups due to illness, injury or unavailability, but it did not detract from an intriguing match, which was played in front of a bumper crowd.

Overall, Emlyn deserved the win, thereby maintaining their unbeaten run in the league, but Aber could justifiably feel slightly aggrieved that they didn’t achieve at least a losing bonus point.

This was denied them late in the second half by an interception try by Emlyn during a period of Aber pressure.

Again Aber lost out to the curse of the long miss-pass, and it would be interesting to know whether they have actually scored more tries than they have conceded through taking this option.

Emlyn started full of pace and purpose and stretched the defence by moving the ball wide, coupled with judicious use of blind-side attacks which the home defence initially coped with.

Something had to give in the face of this relentless pressure, however, and eventually the Aber defence was breached twice in quick succession by outside-half Llyr Davies, both tries being converted by winger Dan Davies to take a 0-14 lead.

Aber kept plugging away and got back into the game through quick thinking scrum half-half Llyr Thomas, who marked the ball in his own 22 and scanned the possibilities to attack. He took a quick tap, ran and kicked into an open field.Centre Sion Cowdy came steaming through the middle to outstrip the defence, pick up the ball up on the run and sprint in to score under the post. This try was converted by Steff Rees to halve the deficit.

Aber, for the remainder of the half, exerted pressure of their own through a prolonged sequence of close forward drives, with skipper Arwel Lloyd well to the fore, but they were met with a resolute Emlyn defence, which denied Aber the opportunity to speed up their attacks.

During half-time Aber had to make a number of positional changes following the withdrawal of full-back Steff Rees through a leg injury.

The pattern continued with Aber, attacking through the forwards, being met with stiff defence by the visitors, who broke away on a couple of occasions and bombed good scoring opportunities.

Following a very efficient line-out take and drive by Aber, the ensuing penalty was kicked deep into the visitors’ 22, from which they set up a number of close drives, which were repelled.

They eventually tried to move the ball wide, but were denied a try by the curse of a long miss-pass which was deemed to be forward when easier options were available.

With both teams going for the win, Emlyn hit the post with a penalty, but scored next when winger Llyr Freeman intercepted a long Aber miss-pass and scampered over from half-way to score.

The longer kick was converted by the boot of replacement full back Shaun Leonard, taking the score to 7-21.

• In Division Three West, Lampeter won their derby 27-10 against Tregaron, Aberaeron were 27-20 winners at Llanybydder, and Cardigan won 31-5 at St David’s. Match reports in next week's edition.