Despite the strong winds, murky atmosphere, heavy underfoot conditions and cold hands, joy resulted from last week's game at Trinant.

The bonus point gained from their four-try, 23-28, away win moved Monmouth into a one-point lead at the top of the Swalec Division 5 East table and still with a game in hand.

The season still has a long way to go but there was much encouragement as the Monmouth pack again dominated in the set piece plays with some sparkling line-out takes and drive after drive in the scrums, which on the day shone forth as their best attacking ploy.

There were of course drawbacks too – the biggest of which was what appeared to be a nasty knee injury to fly-half Rhys Ricketts early in the second half.

Kicking out of hand and at goal proved a difficulty in the strong wind and it did not help in the first half that the pace of the game was rather frantic, which played at times into the hands of the foraging home team.

Scrum-half Gareth Morgan was back to his sharpest and deserved to be first on the score-board with a try. The kick, like many others, failed as did a kick at goal a minute later but Trinant playing with the wind, they dug deep and took the lead seven-five and extended it to 10-five 10 minutes before half-time with a successful penalty for a Monmouth tackler not releasing.

Monmouth, having had the bulk of possession, realised they deserved better reward for their efforts and took play back to the Trinant line where from a maul, hooker Ed McCord added another five points.

For full report see Beacon 30/11/11.