PONTLLANFRAITH 13 – 30 NANTYGLOPont slipped to bottom of Division 4 East on Saturday after losing convincingly to Nantyglo on the Welfare ground. It’s now three losses form three in the league for the boys in blue who now have to dig deep to get back to winning ways.
The coaches and team selectors made seven personnel and five positional changes after last week’s game one sided affair against Tredegar. Jamie Jenkins came back in to the hooker position for Nathan Meyrick and Dan Welsh regained his favoured loose head position. Liam Meader came in to join captain Steve Reynolds in the second row for the absent Josh Falatu. Dan Harris returned to the back row with Vince Welsh still out nursing a head injury. Big changes at half backs, with wing Pete Thomas slotting in at scrum half and the in-form Chris Miles starting at fly half. Gavin Lynch retained his position at inside centre and was joined by Blackwood’s Mark Bolton. Martin Gregg and Aaron Romanic took place on the wings with Andrew Deneen moving to the full back position.
Pont didn’t get off to the best starts as the rain poured down with the big, experienced Nantyglo pack dominating the scrum and loose play. The condition didn’t suit either side but Nantyglo performed the better using their weight to their advantage and their outstanding flyhalf to gain territory. The resulting pressure leading to two unanswered tries from the visitors to go 0-12 up after twenty minutes. Pont then put some good patterns of play together and started to run the ball back the opposition. With the defence now up close on Pont, stand-in flyhalf Miles put through a nicely weighted grubber for the speedy scrum half Pete Thomas to pounce and score Ponts only try of the game which Miles duly converted. Both exchanged penalties and the match went into half time with 10-15 scoreline.
As the second half got underway Pont were looking to build confidence and get their noses in front early on but this was not to be. The Nantyglo outside half now controlling the game, Pont barely got out of their own half. The vistors went over for further tries and the match finished 13-30.
Coach Tony Jayne said “Untimely disruptions to the squad haven’t helped but I would have liked to see a closer scoreline than that this week. Nevermind, we’ll train hard and put things right, we’ve got a number of players coming back into the fold and hopefully we can get our first win of the season against Risca next Saturday”
1) Dan Welsh
2) Jamie Jenkins
3) Justin Preece
4) Steve Reynolds (Capt)
5) Liam Meader
6) Phil Williams
7) Dan Harris
8) Bleddyn Jones
9) Pete Thomas
10) Chris Miles
11) Marin Gregg
12) Gavin Lynch
13) Mark Bolton
14) Aaron Romanic
15) Andrew Deneen
16) Nathan Meyrick
17) Rhys Morris
18) Carl Taylor
19) Chris Barlow
