The brutiful game

The recent snow meant that I was confined to barracks over the weekend for long periods. No worries, It thought, there is always the Heineken Cup rugby on the TV.
I watched a lot of rugby over the weekend  and was struck how lacking in charm and guile it all was. Yes of course the weather was not very good, but it all seemed to consist of oversize brutes clattering into each other. Whilst rugby has always been like this to some extent (and being from Pontypool I know that more than most) the Heineken Cup seems to bring out more of these tactics than any other rugby that you care to watch. This style of rugby is ideally suited to big thick-set specimens and the winners seem to be the teams who can invest in the biggest and best South Sea Islanders, South Africans or Argentinians. Once you have got a pile of these guys on the field and almost as importantly on the bench you can hold your own against anybody. Don't think that these guys are just the forwards but they can be found in the backs as well. Tactically you just batter away with these juggernauts until the other side gives away a penalty. This can be achieved at scrum, line out ruck and maul or even when the other side is attacking. It is attritional to the extreme and not at all entertaining to watch unless you happen to support either of the sides that are playing. As you might expect, injuries abound and and you really need a large squad to be competitive.
In addition to this, the game is littered with professional fouls, off the ball incidents and baffling refereeing decisions. Why would anyone other than a hardened rugby fan want to watch it?
The Heineken Cup is played at a time of year when the weather is often poor and pitches are often sodden. This means that trying to outwit the juggernauts with speed and guile is not an option. By the time the final comes around and the weather has improved the running sides have been steamrollered so the final is rarely the rugby showpiece it could be.
You might say this is all sour grapes as the Welsh Regions have clearly not been very good at this type of rugby. Shortage of funds has meant that they can no longer afford to recruit hired muscle. From a Welsh team perspective it is good that the regions are all eliminated from Eurpoean competition as any more injuries and we will need to get the Pontypool Front Row out of retirement.

Ebbw Vale in the pink

Pontypool welcomed high-flying Ebbw vale to a dank and cold Pontypool Park yesterday. I think most of the Pooler supporters saw this as a damage limitation exercise but also a good chance to measure the progress that the team had made over the season so far. Unfortunately the match demonstrated the considerable gulf between the two sides as Ebbw Vale stormed to a comprehensive 6-44 victory.

Ebbw Vale started the brighter and not just because of their strip that was vivid pink with light blue trimmings. For the first ten minutes or so, Pooler could not get their hands on their ball as Vale played powerful phase rugby. Pooler defended well and managed to protect their try line but conceded two penalties and were behind 0-6. These looked decidedly bleak for the home team but they found inspiration and for the next 20 minutes gave as good as they got and managed to draw level with two penalty goals. Was an upset on the cards? Not in Ebbw Vale's eyes and their powerful forwards began to turn the screw particularly in the scrum. Pooler were back on the defensive and the vistors' stronger and more cohesisve play led to two tries the second on the stroke of half time. The score at the interval stood at 6-18 which was perhaps a little flattering to the away side.

The second half proved to be very much one way traffic as Pooler wilted under the incessant pressure from Ebbw Vale. The end could not come quickly enough for the home supporters as the vistors seemed to score at will and racked up 26 points with no reply from Pooler. Tyler and Dyckoff tried hard for Pooler but there was no stemming the pink tide.

Ebbw Vale were stronger in all departments than Pontypool and the home side were left with no illusions about the gulf between them. As they say the league table never lies.

Ebbv Vale v Pontypool

It could have been Pooler

I have just come back from a holiday and I was amazed to see Bedwas at the top of the Welsh Premiership. I seem to remember that we did the double over them last season and finished above them in the league table. It only goes to show what could have been possible had we not been demoted as we were clearly a better side than them at the end of last season.
Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten my new year resolution about not whinging about the injustice of 2012. Good luck to Bedwas, I hope they go on to win the league. What are all the Ospreys region clubs doing at the bottom of the table if that is the only true region?
Didn't manage to see Pontypool at Bargoed but the score seems to suggest a reasonable effort against the league leaders. Now looking forward to the visit of Ebbw vale on Saturday

No regions to be cheerful

I didn't make the long trek to Narbeth to watch Pontypool. As it turned out the Pooler lost 27-6 which was probably about as I would have expected. We remain rooted to the bottom of the Championship with only Whitalnd beneath us but I hope a few more wins are just around the corner
Instead of watching Pontypool I flicked between the Ospreys playing at Toulouse and the Scarlets hosting Exeter. A glutton for punshment I even watched a bit of the Blues against Montpelier the following day. All three games ended in defeats for the Welsh regions and in truth they never looked like winning any of them. My first observation was just how sparsely attended the two Welsh grounds were while the Toulouse ground was buzzing. Thankfully the Blues were not playing at the Cardiff City Stadium but at the more compact Arms Park and even then there were large empty spaces. What next I wonder? - downsize to Glamorgan Wanderers' ground perhaps. The Heineken Cup is meant to be the pinnacle of professional club rugby and it is a tragedy that home support is not more forthcoming . I am sure it didn't help that all three games were scheduled to be played at lunchtime and all were live on the TV. Remember that there were also empty seats at the Wales v Australia game and even at the Wales v All Blacks game. The marketing men need to take a good look at themselves. As I remember it, when formulating your market strategy you needed to consider a lot of things starting with P:

• Product - losing rugby never helps but the game seems to have lost its ability to entertain, Too many collpased scrums and musclular collisions instead of artistry. Too few genuinely exciting players - hardly any genuinely world class players ply their trade in Wales these days. The regional product is clearly failing in comparison to club soccer in Wales.
• Price - falling attendances are a sure sign that the price is too high particulary when the games are virtually all on the TV. It's surely better to have a full stadium at a lower price than swathes of empty seats. The Irish seem to be able to fill their grounds in a country that is even more affected by austerity.
• Place - regional rugby seems to be restricted to the M4 and has forgotten about the Welsh valleys. Perhaps if a region fails to achieve a set attendance target the franchise should be offered out to tenders. I would also add kick off times to place as they are not exactly user friendly.
• Promotion - I have to say I don't really come across much promotional activity for regional rugby. I hear that now and then tickets are given away in supermarkets. The stuff on the TV and radio for Wales games is irritating to say the least. No one has yet persuaded me to go and watch the Dragons.

I hope that the new board or whatever it is going to be called will not just argue about money but will try and fertilise the dying grass roots of the game in Wales. The feelgood factor from last season is rapidly disappearing. The statistics speak for themselves - Wales have lost seven games in a row and there has only been one Welsh regional victory in the Heineken Cup. If I add to this Pontypool have only managed to win once it's looking like a long hard season!

Wales need to persuade the fat lady to sing earlier

You could almost hear Victor Meldrew saying' 'I don't believe it,' when the Aussies snatched victory against Wales in the last seconds yet again.
I felt a bit like dear old Victor as I sat through the pre-match "entertainment". You used to be uplifted by Welsh coral singing but this eeems to have become increasingly marginalised in favour of loud and discordant fanfares from the p.a. system interspersed with even louder advetrs on the big screen. The loudness of the p.a. system means that wehn they actually allow the choir to sing your hearing cannot take in the harmonies. Nevertheless the National Anthem was belted out with all its usual fervour and still makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I hope that they will never decide to slip an advert in between the first and second verses although I'm sure that someone has thought about it..
I suppose we had better get back to the match. These are two evenly matched teams who try and play a similar style of rugby. Suffice it to say that two very strong defences were on top with line breaks few and far between. Wales had two chances to score from breaks from their own 22 but didn't take them and Australia with the last move of the game took their chance at the death. It was exciting stuff with the lead changing hands through penalties throughout the game. Wales really wanted this victory and carried on in a similar vein to the second half against the All Blacks . At 12-9 up, with under two minutes left and with a lineout right on the Aussie line you almost felt convinced that Wales could win. Memories of the matches in Australia this summer came flooding back and it somehow seemed inevitable that Australia would find a way to come back. The nervousness of the crowd was palpable and must surely have been felt by the players. The rest as they say is history.
Maybe those wizards who operate that fantastic p.a. system could blast out some music by a fat lady with a minute or so to go. Maybe we could have a choir of fat ladies in the stand ready for these kind of eventualities.
I still don't believe it.

Pontypool Met Their Match

Pontypool took on Cardiff Metropolitan University on a bitterly cold November night at Pontypool Park. For Pontypool the only thing that shone brightly was the floodlights as they suffered yet another defeat.
Pooler played down the slope in the first half and after their usual lively start surrendered territory to the visitors who spent long periods in the home 22.The Pooler defence held firm, however, and the students failed to capitalise on two kickable penalties. Pontypool did manage a penalty in a rare sortie into Cardiff Met territory to lead 3-0 at half time.
The second half started in a similar vein with the visitors quickly gaining territorial advantage and testing the resolute Pooler defence with their pacy backs. The students hit the post twice with two further penalty attempts and must have started to feel it wasn't going to be thier night.The turning point of the match was when Faletau was sin binned following a fracas. Shortly afterwards the students were awarded a penalty try following repeated Pooler infringements close to their line to lead 3-7. This was followed by an unconverted try in the corner when the home defence was outflanked. Pooler closed the gap with another penalty and with the score 6-12 were still in touch. The home side then enjoyed a long period of possession but too often went across the field without going forward. On the rare occasions that they manged a line break there was nobody in support to take an offload. In truth, Pooler never looked like scoring a try against a well-organised Cardiff Met defence. To make matters worse the students scored another try when their scrum half crossed from short range and with the conversion this gave them an unassailable lead of 6-19. Pooler huffed and puffed for the remainder of the game but never really threatened so that was the final score.
Pontypool may now be in a much stronger position financially but there is a long way to go if they are to strengthen their position in the league.

Wales Sink in Black Sea

I went to Cardiff to watch Wales take on the All Blacks. All the talk before the game was hoping that we could hold them to 30 point victory - no talk of us beating them. Some pessimistic forecasts even suggested losing by 50+ points.  In the end a 10-33 result seems OK on paper then.
It was a strange game because we have grown used to holding the All Blacks for an hour or so and then being overwhelmed in the last quarter. In this game the All Blacks stormed to an unassailable lead of 0-33 in the first hour with Wales nowhere. True were not helped by early injuries - the one to Bradley Davies leaving a particularly bitter taste in the mouth. We all feared the worst but fortunately the All Blacks coasted a bit and let us back into the game. Their minds were probably on the England game next week. This gave Wales the chance to sieze the intiative and score a couple of tries - one from a rather bizarre 15 man lineout.
I have to say the All Blacks despite their unquestionable talent are a ruthless and cynical team who would probably stop at nothing to win. You can admire their skill but it is difficult to like them.
Wales now have to beat Australia next week to stay in the top eight seeds for the World Cup. I wonder which Autralia will turn up? Knowing our luck it will be the A team.
Good news for Pooler with our benefactor Peter Jeffries making a huge contribution to settling our debts. A big thank you must go to him. Let's hope we can now put the issues of the last year or so behind us and move forward.