Monmouth did Tommy Hamilton, their match sponsor, proud by beating RTB Ebbw Vale 32-15 last Saturday (14th May) on Chippenham to earn themselves a play-off chance of re-joining Swalec League Division 4 after tumbling from it last season.
When losing away to RTB earlier in the season, they had been hampered by their opponents opting to switch to passive scrums, so when they announced that they would play without substitutes from the start due to a front row shortage, Monmouth were this time placed at a disadvantage by this conscious negation of the strength of their front five forwards.
Playing quite a few of their Youth players, too, laid down a challenge of fast fluid rugby which Monmouth rose to, scoring four tries to the visitors' three in a frantic yet exciting match.
But they could not have started worse when a clearing kick was charged down and from the resultant attempt to clear the lines from a tricky counter-attacking run RTB were five points ahead in the first minute.
For full report see Beacon 18/05/11.