After weeks of being 'nearly-rans', Monmouth took bottom of the table St Joseph's RFC from Cardiff apart, scoring 11 ties to none in what was still quite a hard fought game.

The backs at long last clicked with virtually all of them scoring and with right wing Tom Baker collecting four of them personally. Full back Ben Berry upstaged even that with 21 points from a try of his own and eight conversions.

After kicking off towards the river end with the aid of a strong wind, the teams were quite evenly matched for the first fifteen minutes or so until left wing Gareth Morgan completed a fast run into the corner by evading a tackle and falling into touch and keeping his balance before coolly dabbing the ball down for the first of many excellent tries.

St Joseph's then rallied and their scrum-half, who was almost as bald as the writer if somewhat younger, led many stirring charges at and sometimes through the home team forwards.

But resistance was strong. Monmouth's front row caused difficulties from time to time and the three tall men Powell, Scourfield and Morgan wore down the visitors by metaphorically punching holes in the visitors' defence backed up competently by their back-row colleagues and the ever present Anstey

Fitness was to tell though as Monmouth in the last ten minutes before half-time ran in three more tries, courtesy of Frost, Taylor who really put himself about all the game, and Baker for his first of the day. Berry neatly added the extra points to them all.

Not all had been plain sailing as far as the coach was concerned because in his team talk he urged the backs to draw their men to make room for the faster wingmen, and for the forwards to avoid picking up the ball and driving on too often as it was slowing down the ball to the backs who today looked already like comfortable match winners.

St Joseph's attempts at a resurgence were short lived in the second half with No. 8 Morgan gaining the first points after only two minutes with Berry again kicking the goal.

Whether the visitors dug deep at this stage or Monmouth's minds wandered is not clear but the game ebbed and flowed for the next thirteen minutes before Baker added to his total too far out for Berry to convert, but it was obvious there were gaps around the flanks on either side of the field and the dam would burst before long.

New man Millward was next on the score-sheet with Berry, following another conversion, soon bursting through a mid-field gap onto an exquisitely timed short flat pass to sprint a full untouched forty yards to the posts for what was for him the simplest of conversions.

At 52-0 with five minutes to go confidence was buzzing at long last and players queued up to put into practice some of the moves they have learned over the weeks on the training ground.

The next score was a peach of a try by Baker having been fed a long but perfectly weighted pass which left him clear round his opposing wing man for a run down the right flank and around to the posts with Berry completing the scoring formalities.

Not to be outdone, substitute left wing Tatham battered through a desperate defence for an unconverted try far out, only for Baker to show a hat-trick was not good enough for him and secure his fourth try in injury time. Berry rounded off an excellent all round performance with a conversion to ratchet up the score to 71-0.

If proof were needed that Monmouth have been under-performing so far this season, this was it, but only time will tell if the players themselves believe it.