Mike Herbert is hoping this is the year that Pontypool RFC finally achieve promotion to the Indigo Premiership.
The flanker joined Pooler in 2017, and despite a highly successful period with the club where he has won three WRU National Championship titles, the club has still failed to clinch promotion.
The 25-year-old stepped out at Pontypool Park last weekend wearing the captain’s armband on his 50th Pooler appearance and helped to claim an impressive victory over Trebanos RFC.
And it’s another bonus-point victory that Herbert hopes will help them on their way to a top-two finish this season, which will grant promotion to the next tier.
“The win is important, it’s all about building ready for promotion hopefully,” he exclaimed.
“I’ve been here for five years and the first three seasons we didn’t lose a game and still didn’t get promoted.
“It’ll be good for everyone [to go up]. There’s a good core group of boys who have been here for the past few seasons now and we know what it’s like to not go up with the challenges that we’ve had.
“So fingers crossed this is the year because we’ve waited long enough for it.”
Pooler ran in a staggering 12 tries against Trebanos RFC but unfortunately Herbert couldn’t mark his half century with a score. However, Mikey was just delighted with the victory.
“It was outstanding,” he said.
“We asked for better discipline. Previously there were some areas where we gave some cheap penalties away and it was an improvement [against Trebanos].
“We’ve got so much strength in depth there were 10 changes and the boys stepped in did the job and it was like we have played for weeks together."
