Dan Babos couldn’t hide his delight with how his Pontypool RFC debut turned in the WRU Admiral National Championship opener at Maesteg Harlequins RFC.
The scrum half came on for the final half hour and helped himself to a brace as Pooler secured an emphatic 50-3 victory.
The 22-year-old had featured in both of the pre-season friendlies this summer but was pleased to finally make his competitive bow.
“I’m really happy,” exclaimed Babos.
“I came on for the last 30 minutes and it started to open up in the second half.
“The first try was just support play and the second I managed to see a bit of a gap and went for it.
“I am chuffed, it’s my first game and it’s nice to get on the scoresheet especially for Pontypool. I come from Pontypool so there’s a lot of pride there.
“When we were playing the friendlies, it was more about getting to know the boys but the first game of the season we need to win and there is pressure to win.
“You could see from the first half how competitive it was, they gave us a really good game in the first half but it the second half it opened up and a few of us were lucky enough to get over the line.”
Pooler were already 22-3 ahead by the time of Babos’ introduction thanks to tries from Pat Lewis, Sam Scarfe and Sam Cochrane and Deon Smith along with a Matthew Jarvis conversion.
He added the next score ahead of Garin Price and Joel Mahoney before rounding off the scoring himself with Jarvis adding the extras.
Not only was it the perfect way to start his Pontypool career but it came in an impressive team display that showed clinical finishing and resolute defending.
“You are always going to have a tough 20 minutes against a team like this because they always want to stay in it,” explained Babos.
“We played with a bit more pace in the second half. We went into the changing rooms 17-0 up and we thought we can either stay there and defend that lead or push on, be aggressive and play quick.
“This year we are going to go with the mindset of playing quick.
“We have an end goal but otherwise we take it game by game and first of all we need to get a win.
“That’s four points and then we’ll try and get the four tries for the bonus point. The boys couldn’t be happier, 50 points away from home against a good side.”
