Last Saturday Monmouth travelled to Tredegar Ironsides, where they played with more vigour than usual, dominated the front row battle, had ample possession, scored the only try of the game, with full back Brace hitting the upright from the left touchline and yet still they lost to the side below them in the league by a single point, 5-6.

The down side is that they still play frantically with attendant handling errors, the line-out is not a secure source of possession despite the athleticism of Harvey Morgan and one or two players are doing so as if they are not sure they want to be there. It so frustrating for team-mates and spectators alike to see people day-dreaming or lacking the commitment to chase and harry allowing the space for the opposition to re-group and relieve pressure.

The weather was glorious and the game relatively exciting even if the result was not to Monmouth's liking. After 15 minutes the 'Irons' crept ahead with a penalty but without too much concern as the Monmouth front row was still grinding down their opponents. The line-out was patchy but Stacey Edwards in particular was everywhere, burrowing away for the ball at every breakdown in play. Johnny Powell, too, seemed to relish his return to the scenes of his former glory days.

It was Edwards though who nearly opened the Monmouth scoring with a splendid burst almost to the opposing try-line only to be stopped by a last ditch tackle from behind and then to offend by a double movement for which he was penalised. In his eagerness to score he had not realised how near his back row support was who would have completed the task for him.

As a result the teams changed around with every expectation that the Monmouth pressure would at last tell but it was Tredegar who crept further ahead after only seven minutes of the second half with another penalty.

Monmouth maintained the pressure, and the advent of fresh legs courtesy of the substitutes maintained the scrummage dominance that had been achieved and in one important aspect allowed the line-out to function more fully by more accurate line-out throwing.

But failure to play as a unit in the backs and just straight forward 'knock-ons', albeit at times at high speed, continued to be the 'Achilles heel' with the score remaining unchanged until a good line out take by Morgan was followed by a strong driving maul near the left hand corner. Quite whether the modest Millard scored before having the ball stolen by substitute hooker Rolfe was not clear, but who cared as we were then only one point away with the touch-line kick to come.

Brace did his very best but the upright intervened and Tredegar were 'let out of jail' in their own words. Monmouth tried hard for the remaining ten or so minutes only to lose position from time to time with some apparently harsh refereeing decisions influenced by the voluble home crowd. But the real answer is that Monmouth's luck has to change some time and hopefully it will be next week when they entertain St Joseph's at the Sports Ground k.o. 2.30p.m.