A barren
period over the festive break for Pooler fans as there was no match after the
Newbridge fixture on the 17th of December. Perhaps it is my age, but
I get little joy out of going out in the cold to watch some other person’s
favourite team play somebody else’s favourite team. So I tend to take to the
couch and watch miscellaneous matches on the TV – at least you can flick to
another channel if it becomes too much like hard work. It is probably just as
well that Pontypool didn’t play as if they had played, say, a couple of matches
there would only have been five league games left for the remaining four months
of the season. As it is, there are only seven to look forward to. Let’s hope we
can do a job on Llanelli and have a bit of cup rugby to supplement our meagre
diet. The bad news for me is that I am going away for a couple of weeks and
will miss three, yes three, of those precious seven matches. Aargh! Championship
rugby has become a rare resource indeed.
Meanwhile
on the couch I did watch quite a lot of the Welsh Regions battling it out in
the much trumpeted local derbys. Rugby was a pretty rare resource in all four
matches too as the Regions seemed to have adopted the style of the national
team in the autumn internationals. Plenty of endeavour but skill levels lacking
for large swathes of the time. Yes of course there were some bright spots and
if you packaged a twenty minute combined highlights from the four matches it
might look good but overall it was pretty disappointing stuff. The kicking duels
in the Dragons v. Ospreys with crowd chanting “Ole” put the tin hat on a dismal
series of matches. If the other games were turkeys then this was the parson’s
nose. East Wales definitely came off second best overall with Ospreys the pick
of the four regions in an eminently forgettable quartet.
As you can
gather, these matches didn’t really make sparkling entertainment so quite a lot
of channel hopping was the order of the day. Rugby from England and Ireland
looked to be a couple of notches up in terms of skill and speed of thought and
deed. Rugby in Wales is definitely seems to be drifting inexorably off the Northern
Hemisphere pace let alone the Southern Hemisphere pace. I did watch a bit of
Pontypridd v. Cross Keys in the Premiership and that was quite impressive at
times so perhaps it is not all bad – clutching at straws here. Perhaps the
plastic pitch at Sardis Road helped to make it a more open game. It must have
been a lot easier to play on than the mud flats of Rodney Parade yesterday.
I just
reread this and it is quite a depressing way to start the New Year. On a
positive note Pontypool are sitting at the top of the Championship with an
unbeaten record and have been playing some good rugby. Long may that continue.
Wishing
all in Pontypool and beyond a successful and peaceful 2017.
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