RGC were dealt a blow to their Principality Premiership title hopes with a 24-6 loss at Llanelli.

The Gogs turned in one of their most disappointing performances of the season on their travels to suffer a first loss of Phase Two, and they were given more bad news as title rivals Carmarthen Quins and Merthyr both secured victories from their respective outings.

Mark Jones’ men have a short time to regroup and will look to get back to winning ways on Good Friday when they host Cross Keys.

The home side started the game on the front foot and went ahead early on when winger Mathew Jenkins turned a spell of dominance into a score when he dived over.

This provoked a strong response from the Gogs, who answered soon after when New Zealander Jacob Botica fired over a sensational penalty from the halfway line, but this was swiftly answered at the other end with a Billy McBryde free-kick for the hosts.

Good work from Iolo Evans presented another penalty opportunity to Botica on 26 minutes which he took advantage of in typically composed fashion to reduce the deficit.

Handling errors cost RGC throughout the contest and prevented a number of try scoring opportunities from being successful, and this was especially evident at the end of the first period during their best spell of possession of the contest.

After the break saw the home side completely dominate proceedings and McBryde extended their advantage with a pair of penalties on 53 and 65 minutes, and things got even worse for the Gogs during the half when Tiaan Loots was shown a yellow card and sent to the sin bin following a number of infringements.

Llan took full advantage of this and confirmed their victory on 70 minutes when a series of passes presented a chance to Kalum Evans to cross the white was, with the trusty boot of McBryde rounding off the scoring with the extras.