LLANARTH seconds continued their resurgence with an emphatic win over Cefn Forest on Saturday.

Winning the toss for the first time this year skipper Keith Spencer had little hesitation in opting to bat on a warm sunny day.

After making steady progress against some inconsistent bowling Spencer contrived to get himself caught at slip off the back of the bat to give Cefn their first success.

Peter Francis however continued to punish the wayward bowling and despite the loss of Will King took the score along to 109 in partnership with Peter Downing before falling for a well made 59.

This precipitated a mid innings collapse as under15 players Downing and Noblet succumbed to the temptations of Cefn spinner David Eyles and holed out in quick succession to leave Llanarth on 110-5.

A brief cameo from Gareth Edwards whose 16 gave the innings some momentum was followed by an excellent stand of 97 between Mike Woodward(41) and Dave Griffiths(54no) who aware that they were the last recognized batsmen first played themselves in and then upped the tempo as the innings came to a close.

Griffiths was particularly severe on the bowling advancing down the wicket and smashing the ball through and over the field to record eight fours and a six in his career best score and ensuring that the final total of 238-7 would be a testing target for the visitors.

Cefn Forest got off to a bad start after tea losing both openers to excellent catches in the cover by Llanarth's favourite "welsh aussie" Gareth Edwards.

They recovered however with a fine partnership between their skipper Simon Williams and Jason Tetley who put together a stand of 109 and were just beginning to look as if they could take the game away from Llanarth when finally Mike Woodward's persistent bowling paid off and Tetley hit one straight to Keith Spencer at point.

The following over, Gareth Edwards, who had a terrific all round game bowled Williams for a very good 60 and this proved to be the turning point.

The new batsmen were unable to meet the required scoring rate and forced into desperate measures resorted to some lusty blows and risky singles, which resulted in a very good catch in the deep by Dave Griffiths and a wonderful direct hit from mid wicket by dead-eye dick 'Doc' King who threw down the stumps with surgical precision.

In the end Cefn Forest opted to bat out the last few overs and finished on 197-7 leaving Llanarth comfortable victors.

MEANWHILE, Llanarth's first team were knocked off the top spot when they visited Abertillery looking for a fourth successive win, only too return home disappointed after contriving to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Batting first, Abertillery were given a very quick start scoring 100 in the first 20 overs, but lost three wickets in the process.

The introduction of Hilditch (2-38) and Chris Powell (2-30) slowed the scoring rate considerably, but Abertillery were still able to progress from their quick start with Bradley (54 n.o) and Bayliss (29 n.o) featuring in a 79 partnership for the seventh wicket.

Some indifferent bowling in the latter stages of the innings enabled Abertillery to close on 220-6.

This looked an attainable score and although Llanarth lost two early wickets, Baxter (69) and Wharton (41) shared the fight back with a stand of 73, before Wharton was out with the score at 109-3.

Heath (33) then joined Baxter and with another partnership of 70 pushing the score to 179 before Heath departed. Baxter quickly followed to leave the score at 188-5 and Llanarth requiring 33 runs from 48 balls to win.

In the end, Llanarth did not even come close, as the remaining five wickets fell for the addition of only ten runs, with a couple of batsmen trying to put the ball into the next county, instead of working for singles and playing sensibly.

Consequently Abertillery won by 23 runs as Llanarth were all out for 198.

It was a disappointing performance for Llanarth in the end, in which only a few players can feel they contributed well.

With time to reflect on a dropped catch that cost 25 runs, seven overs that cost 65 runs, and the aforementioned batting collapse, hopefully will recover in time for next week and play as they have in the previous three matches.