Pontypool RFC 13 Glamorgan Wanderers 17

ANOTHER bonus point, but another defeat on a day when Pontypool head coach Mike Hook admitted to having a horrible case of déjà vu.

So dominant for 15-20 minutes before half-time, Pontypool once more failed to take their chances and blew a 10 point lead to crash to their tenth defeat in 11 games.

After a pretty tame opening 20 minutes, Pooler began to take control of the game, with No.8 Adam Brake carrying well, and the impressive front-row of John Lavender, Luke Palmer and Dan Matthews beginning to exert real pressure in the scrum.

It was from a Wanderers defensive scrum on their own five metre line that the Pooler pack managed to smash the visitors off the ball, before Brake mowed over the top of Wanderers’ stand-in scrum-half Tom James to score.

Clayton Gullis added the conversion to an earlier simple penalty, but Pooler had already missed three admittedly tough kicks at goal leaving a potential nine points on the table.

That failure to capitalise when on top came back to haunt them, partly through an improved Wanderers second half display, and partly through Pontypool’s sadly oft-seen ability to self destruct.

Almost straight from the restart a sliced crossfield kick managed to somehow find its way to Wanderers centre Charlie Johnson, who looked like he could have been offside.

Johnson fixed Steffan Morgan before rolling in full-back Ed Doe for a simple score, converted by Ianto Griffiths.

In the second half, the game followed a similar pattern, scrappy in midfield, before poor defending off the side of a ruck allowed Wanderers outside-half Griffiths to stroll over for an easy converted score.

Pooler responded with some pressure of their own which told when Gullis added an easy penalty from in front of the posts after Wanderers were pinged at the ruck in their own 22 to make it 13-12.

But Pooler again failed to press on, a wayward Gullis kick was run back by Doe who this time played provider popping to substitute Lloyd Chalke.

Chalke beat three woeful attempted tackles down the left touchline, but still showed impressive pace to find the line.

Griffiths couldn’t add the extras but it didn’t matter as although the hosts had plenty of ball they were unable to carve out a meaningful chance.