Down to Earth with Bumps

There are few more scenic places to watch rugby than Pontypool Park on a sunny September afternoon. The ground looked a picture for the first home league game of the season and we could look forward to a lively encounter between old rivals Pontypool and Swansea. Both teams had won their first matches and the Pontypool faithful hoped that the home team could put down a marker against a powerful Swansea team that must surely be one of the favourites for the league title. The Pontypool team had a familiar look about it as many of the new members of the squad were unavailable due to injury.

Swansea dominated the early exchanges but were let down by poor handling at crucial times. This coupled with some strong Pontypool defence prevented them from taking the lead. Pontypool managed to break out but, in the course of doing so, influential centre Thorley was badly injured and was stretchered off. We wish him well and hope that he has a speedy recovery. This disrupted both Pooler’s shape and their rhythm and Swansea wrestled back the initiative and scored their first try soon afterwards to take a 0-7 lead.

The home side hit back with a Tom Hancock penalty but this was cancelled out by a Swansea penalty to leave the score 3-10. A sustained period of pressure close to the Swansea line eventually led to a penalty try being awarded to the home side at a scrum which tied the match up at 10-10.

Pontypool were further disrupted by the loss of Jordan Williams who was replaced by lock Lee Williams. Losing two players through injury so early on when you are only allowed five replacements in total does make things difficult as it drastically reduces the options for tactical substitutions later in game. I am still not clear why teams in the Championship are restricted to just five replacements.

Swansea finished the half the stronger and were rewarded with a further try after some excellent combined play following a quick throw in at a lineout near their own twenty two. The half time score was 10-17 and both sides looked delighted for a break on what was a pretty warm afternoon.

The home side started strongly in the second half and went close to scoring a try on a number of occasions. They had to settle for whittling away the Swansea lead through two penalties and with the score at 16-17 it was still anyone’s game.

As Pontypool tired, the lively Swansea backs started to find more and more gaps to exploit and although Pooler strove manfully the last quarter belonged to the visitors who played some excellent rugby. Swansea pulled majestically away with two tries one of which was converted and a penalty to earn a bonus point victory with a final score of 16-32. In truth the margin could have been greater and there is no doubt that Swansea will be a force to be reckoned with in the league for the rest of the season.

As for Pooler, they will need to lick their wounds and try and lift themselves for what promises to be a tough local derby at Newbridge next week. The long list of injuries is a concern, let us hope that the medical staff can work wonders so that we can start to reap the benefits of what is a strong squad of players. Of course we should feel disappointed at the loss, but I don’t think that we need to feel too bad about losing to a Swansea side that will not be beaten many times this season.

The RWC is just around the corner and Wales too are beset by injuries. It will take a monumental effort for them to get out of “the group of death” but they still have a fighting chance. We need a lot of luck with injuries as the strength in depth is now really being challenged. I suppose it can’t be that bad if James Hook is not good enough even to be a replacement! I don’t know much about Uruguay but if they have players with a similar physique to the Argentinians they can rattle a few bones. The Fijians will certainly give us plenty to worry about and then there are England and Australia. The RWC is sure to be pretty brutal and the teams with the strongest squads will the ones to win through in the end.

Injuries certainly seem to be an ever increasing worry in rugby. Some of us can still remember the days when Pooler used to play forty-odd games a season with what seemed like the same team for every match. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks!

So next weekend serves up a menu of Newbridge and Uruguay. Come on Pooler! Come on Wales!