The two teams went hammer and tongs at each other during a ferocious 80 minutes, the Welshman taking the lead on four occasions before the visitors ultimately snatched victory late on.

It was Aberavon who hit the front on 10 minutes as Steff Gibson went over on the left, Ed Dunford with a tremendous conversion before Rams hit back through a brilliant Joe Pannese debut score.

Fraser Honey levelled with a straight-forward kick, only for Gibson and Dunford to make it 14-7.

Some beautiful handling created a mess of the Wizards’ defence for Ollie Cole to snipe over on the half-hour mark, Honey ensuring it was 14-14 at the interval.

Aberavon hit the front again as James Clegg touched down, Dunford again on target, but Rams scored the try of the game as they went end-to-end with an effort finished by Olise Monye.

The hosts rallied again, though, a fourth converted try eventually bettered by two more from Rams, Ed Hoadley the third visiting scrum-half to touch down before impressive debutant Harry Stone grabbed the winner, Andrew Lamb on target with the final two conversions.

Relfecting on a rip-roaring contest, Seb said: “It was a really good game of rugby and one which felt like a National One fixture.

“There were two very physical, well-drilled sides going at it with highly-motivated players and it was a great fixture – Aberavon were quality.

“We always knew it was going to be tough and as a first hit out for pre-season, we couldn’t have asked for anything more in terms of getting the guys meaningful, challenging rugby.”

He continued: “There were some excellent individual elements from players who you hoped would show it, and it’s a real positive – all the new players came in well with how they performed.

“I don’t want to single out individuals because there were so many of them, but also the collective and what we’ve looked at in this pre-season, you could see the style in evidence and how the guys were trying to work on those things.”

The highlight of an absorbing contest was arguably the Monye try, which saw Zach Clow take the ball from his own try-line before Rowan Grundy, Stone and Jack Rampton made further yards before the job was finished on a full-length effort.

And Seb beamed: “It was very nice. There were maybe elements of fatigue setting in and we perhaps took advantage of that, you could argue it wasn’t coming too much early on but we were patient and then those bits of continuity produced a lovely try.

“But it’s also a credit to the hard work the guys have put in that around the hour mark at times we were able to put the hammer down with our conditioning.”

Other notable areas of strength came at the line-out, where new recruit Nile Dacres, force of nature Dan Swain and Connor Stapley stole plenty of opposition ball, and the tried and tested domination at scrum time.

Commenting on the latter, where Rams won a trio of early penalties, Seb said: “The challenge was laid down by James Baker, which gave us a guide to see how the others did, and they all did so well.

“It’s great and I was especially pleased for Liam Bishop because he had a very tough year with injury after joining us and he’s just done fantastically to get himself out there and perform the way he did.”

With three No. 9s also on the scoresheet, the DoR added the competition for places can only continue to improve the trio as he revealed: “One of the nicest problems we have in the team is the quality we have at scrum-half – they all did well and they all bring different things, it’s going to be a battle for those guys.”

And with various roadworks and traffic jams meaning it was a long day down to Wales, Seb saved his final words for the impressive travelling fans as he closed: “We’ve had a lot of change in the squad and I think people want to see what’s going on, so we’re so grateful to the supporters who travelled down – it wasn’t an easy journey but we can’t wait to see them again at Chinnor (Bank Holiday Monday, August 26) and then at Old Bath Road for the National One opener against Darlington (Mowden Park, September 7).