Pre-seasons in the Sun

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!