POOLER team manager Shaun Rees has shared his feelings on Saturday's disappointing defeat at home to Swansea RFC on Saturday, writes Andrew Deering.

Pooler, who came into the game off the back of a victory against Cardiff Met, were unable to adequately upset the St Helens outfit, who would have been pleased with their work in Gwent.

The defeat saw Pooler slip to fourth in the table and with six games still to go until the end of the season, the team will be conscious of not letting their campaign tail off as they prepare for the 2015/16 campaign.

Rees said he was far from pleased with the performance of his team, especially the first-half display.

"We were flat in the first-half and didn’t turn up," he said.

“The team needed a stern talking to from the coaches at half-time to change the game and the attitude of the players when they came out. When we came out in the second-half, we were a different team.”

“We left six points in the first-half that would have changed the game for us. Playing down the hill, we could have squeezed them a little bit tighter than we did.”

But Rees said he did not think his die were out-classed. “They were there to be beaten, we owed them one," he added.

"We played Swansea away earlier in the season and felt that we lost that game, rather than Swansea won it.

“Again today it was second versus third; they were there to be beaten for sure. We felt we had enough ammunition in our armoury to come out and put a performance in. We let ourselves down.

One of the biggest disappointments of the first-half was the performance at the set-piece, Rees said.

“We put things in place to sort that out after thirty minutes," he said.

"We made some changes in the front-row and I think we saw the benefit in that, collectively as an eight. Normally the scrum is one of our strong points. It was a bad day at the office.

“There were not many positives for us. The biggest positive was Clayton Gullis coming out (to the dug-out) after being carried off with a head injury. The only thing we can highlight is that we came out in the second-half fighting. We didn’t let it slip away from us.”

Rees also indicated that the club have begun to look to next season already.

“We are getting there; it’s not for the want of trying," he added. "We’re working hard internally to retain the squad we have and also there is a drive on recruitment to strengthen the squad. Hopefully we can kick on for whichever league we are in."