It was great to be back at Pontypool Park on a warm summer afternoon. This was my first taste of rugby before the new season proper starts. Pontypool were playing old rivals Newbridge which used to be a fixture to savour over the years but the two clubs are now in different leagues and so a more amicable tussle could be expected. This was Pooler’s second outing of the pre-season with the first an away victory at Ystrad Rhondda.
Pontypool Park
was looking quite brown as the prolonged drought had taken its toll on the
grass. The match itself was like watching a match on TV with the sound off as
there was no information about the make-up of the teams or the scorers during
the match. Yes, there were some familiar faces in the Pooler team but some
newcomers too. I will therefore not be writing a match report as such but more
an impression of what went on.
Pooler ran
out winners 55-15 in what would appear at first glance to be a very one-sided
encounter. This would be misleading as the Newbridge gave a good account of
themselves and provided a stern test with their forthright approach and strong
scrum. Newbridge were let down by their poor finishing when they got into the
Pooler twenty-two but for which they could have bagged a few more tries.
To their
credit, Pooler seized on the away side’s mistakes and took full toll. The first
two Pooler tries were testimony to this. The first came on a Newbridge scrum
near their line. The Newbridge scrum pushed Pooler back but they lost control
of the ball only for the home scrum half to snaffle it and score. The second
try came when Newbridge were right on Pooler’s line and in a situation when one
more pass would have led to a try. That crucial pass was intercepted and Pooler
went the best part of a hundred metres to score a try.
Both sides
tried to run the ball in perfect conditions but there were far too many
handling errors. The Pooler back three looked potent when they got the ball but
too often the final pass went awry. There was plenty of promise from Pooler and
hopefully the errors will be eliminated as the season progresses and the new
faces get bedded in. Pooler scored three
more tries in the first half that was punctuated with a rehydration break and
led 31-0 at halftime.
Newbridge
changed their shirts from blue to red at halftime and really took the game to
Pooler for the first ten minutes or so. They finally managed to cross the
whitewash and scored two tries to bring the score to 31-10. The mass substitutions
that are typical of these warm-up games made a difference and Pooler wrested
back control of the match. They scored four more tries to one from Newbridge in
a dominant final quarter. The final score at 55-15 was probably rather
flattering but it was a good workout for both teams in hot conditions.
There are
plenty of things to work on for Pooler as they prepare for the first league
match against Llandovery in mid-September. All in all, however, the coaches
will surely be pleased with what they saw. The next warm-up match is at home to
Cinderford next Saturday.
If I was
an optimist and hoped that Welsh rugby would have settled down over the closed
season I would have been sorely disappointed. Realistically, I didn’t imagine any
progress would have been made to sort out the regional game. What has happened is worse than that. It seems
to have gone backwards and there are calls for the WRU board to resign en masse. Who knows what
happens next – it an absolute shambles.
I am sure
everyone involved in Welsh rugby would love to have four competitive regions
but the reality is that there is not enough money to finance it. Something has
to change but it seems that we are still way off agreeing what that something
is. I suppose more months of rancour and instability are bound to follow. It is
enough to make a grown man weep. Thankfully there is the new SRC season to look
forward to as things stand.
Come on
Pooler!
