The early exchanges saw a number of handling errors and minor offences as both teams struggled to retain possession.
Swansea missed a penalty opportunity to open the scoring and were made to pay when an opportunist try from livewire Scrum Half Tom James saw Neath take the lead.
Collecting a line out ball from Euros Evans, James capitalised on a yawning gap in the Whites defence to touch down. Dai Langdon surprisingly failed to add the relatively easy conversion.
Langdon did not need long to redeem himself, however. From the restart Swansea knocked the ball on and from the resulting scrum Neath worked the ball out to the backs and to the impressive debutant Ryan Evans.
The Bryncoch product, who made an instant impact in the Adam Jones Testimonial last weekend, released Gareth King. With Neath closing in on the visitors 22, quick ball from Tom James allowed Dai Langdon to sneak over, rolling around the last Whites defender and placing the ball over the line. Langdon failed to convert and the lead remained at 10-0 for the Welsh All Blacks.
Swansea finally got on the board with a Sam Davies penalty on 27 minutes and he added another soon after to narrow Neath’s lead to 10-6 at half-time.
Within a minute of the restart, Neath extended their lead to seven points. A lineout to the home side on half way was mauled forward and worked through the backs to Dai Langdon, who popped over a smart drop goal. But straight from the re-start, Swansea drew back within four points, Sam Davies successfully converting a penalty to bring the score to 13-9 in favour of the Welsh All Blacks.
The action continued to be non-stop and from the Neath re-start Swansea launched a high ball, which Tom James took superbly. He fed the excellent Evans in the centre who burst past two defenders before the ball was chipped to within five metres of the visitors line. Euros Evans stole the defensive line out and the ball was spun out to Elliott Jones who crashed over the line. Langdon managed to convert what turned out to be his most difficult kick of the afternoon, extending the Neath lead to 20-9.
Swansea didn’t look much like crossing the home try line all afternoon and Langdon added another penalty to give Neath a 23-9 lead, one they held on to when the final whistle blew.
