Quick on the Draw

I had been away on holiday to grab some Winter sun and had missed the last two Pontypool games so I was in urgent need of a rugby fix as we headed for Bridgend Athletic. Recent games have been close affairs with the outcome still in the balance in the last few minutes so this was going to be a stern test for Pooler after their narrow defeat at home to Newbridge in the Cup last week.

The game was played in glorious sunny conditions but on a sticky pitch that had suffered from the ravages of the recent bad weather. The game was a really scrappy affair, littered with mistakes, with neither side able to achieve any measure of control for a significant period. Bridgend Athletic probably edged the first half in terms of territory and possession and deserved their 6-3 interval lead.

The second half was a little better with an early exchange of penalties taking the score to 9-6. Pooler scrum half Quick then had a clearance kick charged down by his opposite number who won the chase for the ball to score the first try of the game. The conversion was missed but a 14-6 lead in the context of this game looked pretty significant. To their credit, Pooler upped their game and responded with a penalty before Quick atoned for his earlier mistake by scoring try in the corner from an attacking scrum. Mills narrowly missed the conversion so the score was tied at 14-14 as the game entered the final quarter of an hour. The home side came back strongly but could not breach a determined Pooler defence. Pooler had a glorious chance to pinch the game with the last play of the game but Norton knocked on with line at his mercy.

A draw was probably a fair result at the end of the game as neither side really did enough to win. It was a good job that the game was relatively low scoring as there was no scoreboard and there weren’t any announcements!

I had hoped that when I came back from my holiday that the row in Welsh rugby between the WRU and the Regions would have been settled. Surprise, surprise the situation has deteriorated, if anything, with ultimata coming and going and much vitriol. A further surprise came when I heard David Moffett being interviewed on the radio. He wants to be the white knight who is going to come all the way from the Antipodes to sort Welsh (and European) rugby out. It puts me in mind of a Bonny Tyler song! I guess he would then move on to design an economic nuclear fusion reactor. The one thing in his favour is that he will speak his mind and might knock a few heads together but I thought that we had managed to get rid of him. I thought that ultimately the clubs ran Welsh rugby through the WRU. Is no one interested in what the smaller clubs think? In the real world, I think that a CEO would be more than a little concerned about his position if he presided over a debacle of this magnitude 

Quite simply the Welsh Regions have not got enough money or resources to compete at Heineken Cup level. Yes the players that they can afford can raise their games every now and then to gain an excellent victory. To do that for six games in the qualification stages, however, is beyond them as this season’s competition has demonstrated yet again. If it was a straight knock-out competition from the star, we might have a better chance. What the Heineken Cup is doing for us is accelerating the development of young players who just have to be thrown in at the deep end as the injuries to the senior players mount from squads already depleted by defections to France and England. This certainly has benefits for the national team but there is no prospect of a Welsh Region winning the Heineken Cup. Standing on the Bank in Pontypool, I wonder if it matters.

Happy New Year.