Torfaen Tigers were overtaken by the Newport Titans this weekend as the race to win the Total RL.com Welsh Rugby League Conference remained tight.

The Newport Titans managed to open up a three point lead on Torfaen in third position thanks to a comfortable 52-18 win over Valley Cougars.

Torfaen were unable to respond to their neighbours' positive result as they went down 34-31 in a thrilling game away to Aberavon Fighting Irish.

A fifth minute Lloyd Burns try gave Torfaen a dream start but they were quickly pegged back by a try by Aberavon's Richard Morris.

The visitors again went into the lead thanks to a field goal from Matt Penney and a Craig Jones try, but a superb try from Gary Vaughan (who covered the length of the field to score) and a conversion from Liam Gadd put Aberavon 10-9 ahead.

Two minutes later and still mid-way inside the first half Torfaen's Jason Hill was sinbinned for fighting and this proved crucial as Aberavon took advantage and scored twice. David Felton and Liam Gadd both scored simplistic tries and Gadd himself converted both to leave Torfaen facing a 22-9 deficit at the interval.

An early second-half try for Craig Jones gave the visitors hope, but then Aberavon took themselves clear with two quick scores again.

Firstly Ceri Thomas burst through before the impressive Gadd picked up his own chip ahead to make the score 34-14.

Three tries in the last ten minutes for the Tigers did nothing more than add respectability to the scoreline and they must now prepare to face Newport Titans next week.

Torfaen coach Kevin Weaver said: "If we had had another ten minutes at the end we could have done it and that was some of the best rugby league we have played all year.

"We won't use the bad referee as an excuse and we will just look forward to next week's game with Newport. We had six boys under the age of 20 in yesterday and they all did well but we missed our kicker.

"But in the end you pay the price for losing concentration and we learnt that lesson."