Nick Wakley was frank in his assessment of Saturday’s loss to Bridgend, admitting Pooler "just weren’t at the races".
Pontypool suffered their third loss in the Indigo Premiership this season and Wakley felt it was a performance not up to the usual standards.
Pooler travelled to Bridgend in good spirits after beating Neath to make it eight wins from 10 league games but they started slow and allowed the Ravens to race into a 14-3 lead, with Matthew Jarvis’ penalty getting them on the scoreboard.
Morgan Lloyd chased down a clearance to kick-start the Pooler comeback with Matthew Jarvis booting another penalty but the hosts edged further through a converted Chris Williams score.
Marcus Jones hauled Pooler back into the game but two Luke Price kicks sealed the win, despite a third Jarvis penalty in the final stages.
The squad did manage to bring back a losing bonus point but that did little to quell the disappointment.
“I think the boys would be the first ones to put their hands up and say that was a poor performance,” admitted backs coach Wakley.
“We gifted them a lot in the first half. There was a bit more endeavour in the second half but we came out of very good attacking platforms with no reward.
“Fair play to them, they battled through, were well organised and hard to break down.
“Bridgend are a team, if you look at all their results, they have always been in games.
“We knew it was going to be a tight game. Full credit to them but we weren’t at the races and that is something that we’ll address.
“If you are looking for positives, we performed badly but remained in the game but we know we have to perform better than that.
“We have to learn from the things we didn’t do well, look at the critical moments of the game that we’ve got to improve at.
“There is no shouting and screaming or mass amounts of negativity because the season has been fantastic so far.”
