On Friday evening, Aberavon (3rd – 50 pts) travel to Carmarthen Park to take on Carmarthen Quins (9th – 20 pts) in the re-arranged Indigo Group Premiership game, kick-off at 7:30 pm.
The Quins have won four of their fifteen league games this season. They started their campaign with three straight losses as they went down to Llandovery, Swansea and Aberavon. In October, they beat Llanelli at home and picked up a bonus point in the process. They lost to Pontypridd a week later but picked up a losing bonus point in that game. They then lost seven games without picking up any points, with the last loss at home to Bridgend early in January. However, since then, the Quins have won three straight games, all away from home, with two of them with bonus points, as they’ve won at Swansea, Llanelli and, last weekend, Pontypridd.
Looking at the Premiership, in “attack”, Carmarthen Quins have scored 14.9 points on average per game (ranked 12th) and 1.9 tries (ranked 11th). In “defence” they have conceded 32.5 points on average per game (ranked 11th) and 4.2 tries (ranked 10th). Aberavon have scored 29.9 points per game (ranked 2nd) and 4.3 tries (ranked 2nd), and conceded 23.3 points (ranked 7th) and 2.9 tries (ranked 7th).
Head-to-head, Aberavon and Carmarthen Quins have met each other 36 times in the Welsh National League, with the Wizards leading the series 22 – 13 with 1 game drawn. At Carmarthen Park, the Quins narrowly lead 9 – 8 with the Wizards winning the last time the sides met in the league at the ground (9 – 7 in 2018-19)
Looking back to the 2003-04 season the Wizards won 27 – 18 at the ground. A superb pack and defensive performance helped the Wizards to that win as they took a 17 – 0 lead at halftime. Wing Lenny Woodard scored the only try of the half while outside half Jamie Davies slotted over four penalty kicks. At the end of normal time, the visitors led 27 – 11 with wing Sam Greenaway scoring a try for Aberavon and Davies converting and adding a fifth penalty. For the home side, centre Emyr Jones touched down while outside half Aled Thomas and replacement Giles Thomas kicked penalties. In injury time, the Quins scored a consolation try by flanker Alan Mason with Thomas converting.
The Wizards team that day was: Ricky Price; Lenny Woodard, Darren Ryan (rep Aled James), David Hawkins (rep Mark Davies), Sam Greenaway; Jamie Davies, Daniel Hawkins; Mike Harris (rep Greg Dix), James Jones, Paul Breeze (rep Mark Thomas), Dafydd Owen, Chris Gittins, Steffan Edwards (rep Jamie Summers), Jonathan Purnell (rep Richard Morris), Howard Merrett (rep Paul Breeze).
The referee for Friday’s game is Gwyn Morris, aided by Rhys Jones and Rhodri Morgan.