Mixed feelings for Jones after game of two halves

Tuesday 07th February 2023
 

Leighton Jones was delighted with the first-half performance against Cross Keys RFC but admitted he was left frustrated by the display after the break.

After recent slow starts, Pooler bucked the trend with a scintillating, energetic attacking exhibition right from the start, which delivered the bonus point by half time.

Mathew Powell and Peter Lloyd touched down twice after Dai Langdon had opened the scoring to set Pooler on their way to victory.

Amosa Nove and Pat Lewis added further scores after the break but the hosts couldn’t replicate the dynamic performance that blew their Gwent rivals away in the first 40.

“I think the boys came out and they started really well,” stated head coach Jones.

“Scored some nice tries, kept a lot of possession and the discipline was really good so I couldn’t have asked for much more in the first half.

“It was a good mix. We had two driving lineout tries but we played some nice stuff as well, made some right decisions and our attack was really good.

“We made seven changes from last week and the boys came in, they were hungry and they put a shift in first half.

“We played as a team and we executed well in what we are training them to do.

“At home we back ourselves against anyone.

“We go for the win first and we got that quite early and then we go for the four tries.

“It was frustrating in the second half, we took too many wrong options, our discipline went a bit and some individual greed crept into our game.

“That is not like us so that’s definitely something we’ll be looking at during the week and addressing because some of the boys went off instruction in the second half and that was a disappointment.”

The game concluded in frantic fashion as Keys ended the game with 11 men while Tom Piper was carded for the Pontypool.

“We will leave Cross Keys to look at themselves, we’ll only look at ourselves,” continued Jones.

“Some of the players took wrong options and tried some stuff that wasn’t on and there was a lot of frustration in our team and I think that crept in the game and certain people lost their heads.

“Again that is something we will look at because that is not us and has never been us this year.

“Cross Keys went down to 11 men and we scored 12 points in the second half so we were bitterly disappointed with that.”

The victory continued Pooler’s perfect record this season and means they are currently seven points ahead at the top of the WRU Admiral National Championship.

 

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