Ashley Sweet believes the squad are always capable of pulling through when their backs are against the wall.
Pontypool had to dig deep to see off the threat of Gwent rivals Ebbw Vale in front of the watching nation and a bumper crowd at Pontypool Park.
It is something the squad have proven they can do over the last few weeks with late wins over Merthyr and Cardiff and they managed to do the same against the Steelmen to record an impressive seventh successive victory in the Indigo Premiership.
Second-row Sweet, who spent a decade with Ebbw, was delighted to come out on top and although he was expecting a tough game he always believed Pooler could see it through.
“I asked the boys to really dig in today and to bring a performance and they did that so I’m over the moon,” he said.
“Ebbw are flying high. Coming into a Gwent derby you’ve always got to bring that physical edge and it was a bit of a ding-dong and we came out on top, which I’m very proud of.
“We knew they were going to come at us.
“In the first half that penalty try didn’t help us but being at home we always know we’ve got that 16th man with the crowd, they are just fantastic.
“The self-belief in the boys, we didn’t give up.
“We are a team when backs are against the wall we can pull through.”
Joel Mahoney, Dylan Kelleher-Griffiths and Alex Grey all touched down to edge Pooler to victory with Matthew Jarvis chipping in with 10 points from the tee but they had to come from behind.
“You always want to try and keep that one-score game,” added Sweet.
“At half time we knew they had the slope in the first half so we were going to be playing down the slope with the wind and we were in touching distance.
“We just needed to keep grinding and that’s what we did to come away with the win.
“A lot of people wrote us off for coming up from the Championship.
“People were negative but that has only fuelled the boys on and you can see the strides we are making week in week out.
“We’ll stay grounded, keep working hard and things will come for us.”
