Despite nearly beating Fairwater away on the last formal day of the season, it was a sad day with David Morgan, one of Monmouth's up and coming young players breaking his ankle in a pure accident as he tried to accelerate through a gap, mid way through the second half.

Both sides scored three tries in an uncompromising game which suffered from a late arrival as a result of FA Cup traffic congestion, gale force winds, heavy showers and some perplexing refereeing. But Monmouth had no real excuses because Fairwater played with 14 men for 45 minutes of the game after the most extraordinary threatening behaviour by one of their forwards who appeared to try to attack the referee after being dismissed from the field of play. Fortunately his team-mates were able to restrain him, … but only just.

Fairwater who were assured of second place in the league, had to fight, sometimes literally, to maintain their winning ways especially following their player's sending-off, but their ability to use the wind better than Monmouth was probably the deciding factor. Monmouth failed to take advantage of it in the first half apart from one occasion when Monmouth had the home team completely stretched only for a forward pass to deprive them of a score but by 23 minutes they had had gone twelve points to nil behind.

At least this stirred the visitors and following a movement to the left hand side of the field Ventor cleverly chipped ahead and beat the defence to the touch-down in the thirty-fifth minute, although the kick from far out was missed.

Next came the dismissal incident and Monmouth must have felt fairly confident breaking for half-time even though the wind was now even stronger and blowing into their faces.

But fifteen minutes later, with Fairwater only occasionally shrugging off Monmouth's attacking intentions, quite against the run of play they kicked deep over the Monmouth line with the not too well sighted referee awarding the try inches inside the touch in-goal line much to the disbelief of the Monmouth supporters. The kick was an excellent one though taking the lead to 19-5 and giving Monmouth quite a mountain to climb.

Monmouth at last began playing with cohesion and after 25 minutes of the half were camped on the Fairwater line for some time until the referee penalised the defence under the posts. From the quick tap and swift distribution along the line by, captain for the day, Davies, wing Griffiths skated in untouched in the left hand corner The kick failed but this time more spectacularly.

Fairwater dug deep and skilfully used long kicks with the wind to relieve the Monmouth pressure, but when Ventor again outflanked the Fairwater defence to score under the posts, Brace took the opportunity and converted to narrow the score to 19-17. But it was now injury time, and despite the long stoppage for Morgan's serious injury, time ran out surprisingly quickly, to the obvious delight of the home team.

That Monmouth should have won was the story of much of their season despite great promise at times. Morgan's injury was yet another sad frustrating incident to cap the enforced retirement of captain Mark Jones only the week before, after many years of talented and committed service, eased only by the return from long term injury, and with some style, of former captain Harvey Morgan.

The Presentation Night on 30 May will help to heal any mental scars gained from a very long season, and a well deserved 6 weeks or so rest from playing will allow the aches and pains to subside. That is, as long as one does not count the friendly against Eindhoven Elephants who are visiting on tour on Thursday 29 May, k.o. 7p.m.