Four tries of the highest quality gave Neath a well-deserved home victory over Newport - despite playing most of the match with only 14 players.

Tristan Davies crossed over for three tries, but it was Patrick Horgan who won the man of the match award with a faultless performance at fly-half.

Horgan scored a superb solo-try in the second half to open up a 33-16 points lead for the home team.

Newport threatened to spoil the party as they scored two tries in a minute with 15 minutes to play, but Neath held firm to secure the win.

Running rugby

Despite being a man down, Neath dominated possession and territory for much of the first half.

James Storey was prominent as Neath constantly broke through the Newport defence.

His strong run through the Newport mid-field set up fellow centre Tristan Davies to cross under the posts for his first try and Shane Williams converted.

Howarth kicked another penalty for Newport before Shane Williams extended Neath's lead to 13-6 after the visitors were guilty of persistent offending.

After being on the end of two high tackles, Matt Pini finally had something to smile about when he crossed over for Newport's first try.

Shane Howarth broke through the home defence to slip a perfectly timed pass to Pini who ran unchallenged to the try line.

Newport found themselves down to 14 men when winger Matt Watkins was sin binned for deliberately knocking the ball to touch with his hand.

Neath kicked the resulting penalty into touch, and the from the line-out, Rowland Phillips broke loose to cross over for the try which took the home side into a 18-16 half-time lead.

Two tries after five minutes of the second half from Davies put Neath on their way to victory.

And when Patrick Horgan crossed after 51 minutes, there was no way back for the Black and Ambers.

The visitors did manage to score two tries of their own, courtesy of Emyr Lewis and another from Matt Pini, to give Neath coach Lyn Jones some cause for concern.

But a Shane Williams penalty in injury time restored a 10 point margin to take the game beyond Newport's reach.

Send in your post-match reaction

Scorers - Neath: Tries: T Davies 3, P Horgan. Con: S Williams. Pens: S Williams 3.

Newport: Tries M Pini 2, E Lewis. Con: S Howarth. Pens: S Howarth 3.

Teams - Neath: Morris, D Tiueti, Storey, T Davies, S Williams, P Horgan, Booth, P Jones, M Davies, Howell, Jackson, Llewellyn (capt), R Phillips, Tuipulotu, Francis.
Replacements: Snow, Forty, Gough, Popham, E Lewis, Pritchard, Gaunt.

Newport: M Pini, M Mostyn, J Jones-Hughes, A Marinos, M Watkins, S Howarth, D Burn, C Jones, J Richards, A Garvey, G Taylor, S Raiwalui, P Buxton, J Forster, G Teichmann (capt).
Replacements: R Snow, L Fortey, I Gough, A Popham, E Lewis, J Pritchard, D Edwards.

Referee: Gareth Simmons (Welsh RFU).