Pooler warm up Carmarthen Quins

Pontypool Park looked at its best in the evening sun on Friday evening. The grass was green and luxuriant and the trees stood tall and proud under an azure sky. But I wasn’t here to see the vegetation I was here to watch Pontypool take on Carmarthen Quins from the Premiership as part of their warm up for the rapidly approaching season. There was an air of optimism with changes to management and playing staff and some encouraging victories against less vaunted opposition already in the bag. This of course would be the acid test to see if the optimism was justified.

Carmarthen played down the slope in the first half with a breeze at their backs and it was soon pretty apparent that they meant business. Pooler were penned in their own half for virtually all of the first forty minutes. The visitors were on top in pretty well all aspects of the game and it is testimony to the tenacity and organisation of the home defence that they didn’t open the scoring until twenty minutes into the half. The whole Pooler team put their all into a sterling defensive display but in the end their line was inevitably breached. Once Carmarthen had scored their first try it was quite quickly followed by two more as they built up a 0-17 lead and a morale busting heavy defeat looked on the cards. Pooler somehow managed to keep the score at this until half time. It was a half where the home side had little possession and were thus completely impotent as an attacking force.

The second half heralded the inevitable changes to both teams and Pooler looked an entirely different prospect playing down the slope. The scrum managed to gain a degree of dominance and they started to win turnover ball in the loose. Carmarthen always had the edge in pace with some dangerous runners in their backs but Pooler more than matched them in the other aspects of the game. After a long scoreless period which was littered with mistakes by both teams the home side scored a try under the posts after concerted pressure and closed the gap to 7-17. Pooler attacked purposefully and looked more than capable of closing the gap further but a breakaway try by the Quins opened up the gap to 7-22. The home side finished strongly and crossed for their well deserved second try with the last play of the game. The successful conversion left the final score at 14-22 with Pooler “winning” the second half.

This match was hard fought and not a typical warm up game. Carmarthen Quins certainly did not take it easy so Pontypool can be proud of their second half effort and their fitness levels. They were still going strong at the end of an energy sapping match. Yes there is till a lot of work to do to improve the cohesion in attack but the signs for the new season are encouraging.

I don’t want to waste any more time railing about the WRU and the Regions but I was glad to see that Adam Jones has signed for the Blues.