A CRUNCH match between the sides in second and third spots in Conference 2 was the mouth-watering prospect at Spytty Park, with both teams boasting three wins to one loss records.

Newport had added some quality experience at the top of their order and, along with their phalanx of talented juniors, the Trees knew it would be a good contest.

Dennis Heath won his sixth consecutive toss and after much deliberation elected to bat first on a fine batting strip at Newport.

In the absence of regular opener David Lomax, the belligerent ball striking of Tom Vaughan was given an opportunity at the top of the order. However he soon picked the wrong ball to try to bunt and departed for a duck.

After a fine midweek T20 innings Christian Dewfield (29) strode to the crease full of confidence and struck a quartet of early boundaries. A change of bowling brought his downfall though as Naomi Davies nipped a good delivery back to strike his off stump. 

By now Mark Baxter (118) was getting into his stride and just after drinks were taken, at 96-2, he reached a half-century for the 100th time in Llanarth colours and was intent on converting this effort into three figures.

He lost Dave Nowell and Eddie Butler in relatively short time, despite Butler nearly decapitating both bowler and umpire with one fierce straight drive.

But, in conjunction with Heath, the scoreboard turned over nicely towards a decent total. Baxter dug out a rarely used sweep shot to reach his 22nd hundred and after striking a couple more boundaries he was finally dismissed for 118 from 107 balls.

Some handy late hitting by Keith Spencer and Chris Powell took the total to a useful 225-7 at tea, a total that would have been a few more had it not been for a very fine spell of left arm spin from Pravin Da Silva who bowled the final 9 overs from one end and protected the short boundary to the extent the he only conceded 33 runs while picking up a couple of wickets.

Newport began their chase positively with the hard hitting Da Silva (36) and Tom Evans finding regular boundaries alongside some good running between the wickets as Llanarth found it tricky to stem an early flow of runs.

With the home side reaching 62-0 from 12 overs the Trees needed some inspiration. It came, as last week, in the guise of Powell (3-19) and Eian Johnson (3-27) as once again the pair bowled beautifully in tandem to take out the Newport top order, assisted by some excellent fielding.

Powell started the rot by enticing Evans slightly out of his ground and Nowell completed an excellent stumping, but this was trumped by an outstanding boundary catch by Heath to remove Da Silva to give Johnson his first scalp of the day.

The same Heath/Johnson combination removed the dangerous Guy Muspratt and, by the time Spencer took a smart low catch at gully off of Powell, Newport had lost 6-24 in 14 overs to slump to

86-6.

Some late defiance from the lower order saw Newport stave off being bowled out and their innings closed at 141-8 to give Llanarth victory by 84 runs.

Next week Llanarth host Radyr who, with a 4-2 record, are eyeing up the top spots in the table themselves and will present another good challenge for the Trees.