The Quins line-out and set-piece were solid which gave the home side sufficient possession however they were again victims of their lack of attacking ideas.
The visitors went on the attack from the whistle, and centre Will Price made a powerful burst only to lose the ball when tackled over the try line. Carmarthen defended well and Aled Thomas was able to ward off this early pressure with good use of the touchline.
After eight minutes a Quins kick out of defence was charged down, Chris Banfield was on hand to clear the threat but when he was stopped the Wizards were quick to counter and slick passing by their backs gave wing Steff Andrews room and an overlap to cross for a well taken try. James Garland converted.
The Quins were able to win good possession but failed to find any gaps due to the visitors aggressive tackling in defence. It was the boot of Thomas that put the Quins on the score board with a penalty after 15 minutes. He repeated this minutes later to register his second penalty
Near the interval the Wizards were awarded a penalty in a kickable position but went for a scrum only to see the Quins eight again take the ball and a chance was lost and the sides changed around with just four points separating them.
In the second half a promising Quins attack came to nothing when a mis-directed pass denied them a score. Not for the first time these errors were going to be costly.
Aberavon countered and James Garland put over a 45 meter penalty to put the visitors into double figures.
Another sloppy passing mistake enabled the Aberavon backs to pick up and send wing Morgan Williams away to score their second try, which went unconverted.
Elis Lloyd was having an outstanding match for Carmarthen and he regularly came away with the ball from the breakdown.
As the match wore on the Quins, at long last, were able to put in some dangerous raids and centre Iolo Evans was able to slice through the cover to score an excellent individual try for Thomas to convert to make the remaining 15 minutes very interesting.
Unfortunately Carmarthen’s lack of attacking flare was to cost them the match as the Aberavon side defended desperately to keep their early season unbeaten record.
The game demonstrated yet again that there are fine lines between winning and losing in the Premiership. The Quins have now lost two home games by just four points and they will know that they could have won both fixtures. Their current tally of seven league points could quite easily have been 13.
A trip to Sardis road awaits the Quins for next week’s fixture and whatever the outcome the squad know that they need a good performance with minimal errors if they are to take any points from the current champions.
