Jones was faultless with his boot, sending seven shots at goal between the posts and adding a try in his personal haul as the north Walians prevailed in the first Indigo Group Premiership match of 2022.
The visitors began the brighter and opened the scoring after five minutes when Rhodri King was on the end of a rolling maul from a short range line-out. Llanelli were unable to stop RGC’s forward momentum and the hooker came up with the ball under a pile of bodies. Former Scarlets Academy product Dion Jones had no problem adding the extras.
RGC continued to turn pressure into points when wing Rhys Tudur slid over in the corner after a slick move involving backs and forwards. Jones’ excellent conversion put RGC 0-14 in front after 16 minutes.
Llanelli finally got on the scoreboard when hooker Llew Phillips Taylor rumbled over but Jones’ boot took RGC out to a 5-17 advantage midway through the first half.
Jones made it four from four attempts as RGC began to pull away from Llanelli with 10 minutes remaining of the first half.
Llanelli then battered away at the RGC try-line but on three separate occasions the home side couldn’t get the ball over the whitewash. RGC’s scrum was then dismantled by the Llanelli pack which gifted fly half Llew Smith an easy three points just before the break.
Llanelli would have wanted to score first in the second half to reduce the arrears but RGC put a spanner in the works when Dan Owens powered over. Jones added the extras before piling on the misery for the home side when he scored the bonus point try for RGC when finishing off a sweeping move. Jones’ conversion left Llanelli trailing 8-34 and with a mountain to climb.
Zach Clow stunned Llanelli with a superb solo try when he scorched and dummied his way down the touchline to score a brilliant individual try. Jones’ seventh success of the night with the boot left Llanelli trailing 8-41.
Llanelli simply couldn’t get a foothold in the game as basic errors riddled their attempts to have an impact on the game to leave RGC fully deserving of their maximum haul of points from the game.
