There was no early Christmas cheer for Whitland when they entertained title contenders Llandovery in division two of the National League on Saturday.

After two successive defeats at the hands of Aberavon and Tondu, the Borderers were looking to get their season back on track against the Drovers in front of their own crowd.

But it was never going to be easy, and although Whitland put up a much better display than they did at Tondu the previous week, it was not quite good enough to lower high-riding Llandovery's colours.

In fact, the Drovers are having an excellent season. They are currently lying in second place, four points behind the pace-setters Pontypool, although Pooler do have the advantage of a game in hand.

Whitland, meanwhile, have now slipped down to 10th position in the table, having collected 24 points, with eight wins from 17 matches, their last a month ago against Bedwas.

On Saturday, however, they gave Llandovery a run for their money and provided the Parc Llwyn Ty Gwyn faithful with something to cheer about as they took an early lead through a Daniel Griffiths penalty.

Gareth Jones replied in similar fashion for Llandovery, only for the Whitland outside-half to restore his side's advantage with a second successful kick after quarter-of-an-hour.

Unfortunately for the Borderers, it was to be Griffiths's last success of the afternoon, as a number of other attempts at goal went begging and in the end that proved very costly.

Jones also failed with kickable opportunities for Llandovery, but he was on target with two others to get his side's noses in front for the first time shortly before the break.

Perhaps the turning point of the match was the sin-binning of Whitland back row man Randall Williams.

Williams was yellow-carded just before half-time and, after the interval, Llandovery made their man advantage count as they worked the room for flanker Wayne Beynon to bag the only try of the match.

The try went unconverted, but it opened up an important eight-point gap for the Drovers, who displayed dogged defence as they repelled Whitland's gallant attempts to get back into it in the second period.

Llandovery were also reduced to 14 men late on when Lyndon Bateman became another to incur the referee's wrath and spend a spell in the sin-bin, but Whitland could not take advantage of their superior numbers and the whistle sounded with them reflecting on their third defeat in a row.