LLANARTH got their league season off to a great start with a morale boosting victory at home to Newport thirds on Saturday.

Losing the toss they were a bit surprised to be asked to bat first on what looked like an excellent batting track but having subsided to 19-3 in the 11th over Newport's decision to bowl looked fully justified. It has to be said that this could be attributed in part to the left-arm over bowler gaining two LBW decisions against right-handed batsmen suggesting rather more movement than was actually being achieved.

Fortunately stalwart opener Mark Baxter was still at the crease and found good support from the middle order in rebuilding the innings albeit at a cautious rate.

He brought up his 50 with a well struck boundary and looked on course for a ton when he was undone by a good delivery which kept a little low and was comprehensively bowled. Nevertheless his 72 had given Llanarth a good platform and with useful contributions of 35 from Dennis Heath, 28* from Peter Francis and a brisk 21* from Dave Griffiths enabled the home team to post a respectable if far from commanding total of 190-6.

The Newport reply got off to a quick start interrupted only by the loss of one wicket to an excellent run out due to sharp fielding and a deadly throw from Andrew Spencer. Despite this setback the Newport skipper Joe Thompson and all-rounder Sankat Nagre had made good progress at 69-1 until Andrew Spencer again took a hand in proceedings. Bowling an excellent spell of seam bowling down the hill he found a great line and length and dried up the scoring rate. Better still he knocked back Nagre's off stump and followed that by cleaning up the next two batsmen as well to finish with the superb and fully justified figures of 3-20 off his 10 overs.

When Derek Whistance removed the very capable Thompson for 64 with the assistance of a well judged catch at long-on from the expertly placed Francis to leave Newport on 119-6 it looked all over for the visitors. However Salman and Davies kept plugging away and gradually started playing more freely to keep up the required rate and threaten to get the City side home. It was Rhys Willbourn who capped a good spell of bowling with the wicket of Davies that finally made the breakthrough and when Baxter took a return catch from Salman off his own bowling in the final over Newport were all out 10 runs short of their target.