Ponty Youth suffer narrow defeat to Bridgend Athletic

The first victory of the year still eludes Pontypridd Youth as they went down to a narrow defeat to Bridgend Athletic on Saturday 14^th January.

In the second finely contested game of the season against Bridgend Athletic the Youth did everything but put the necessary points on the board to secure the match, eventually going down by two penalties to one.

This was a far more positive and cohesive opening from Ponty than the previous weekend and although Bridgend edged the balance of play in the first quarter Pontypridd made good use of solid set pieces with hooker Nathan Evans accurately finding a clever mix of jumpers and a heavy scrum nudging the opposite eight.  It was Evans who sparked the first telling Pontypridd attack after taking a loose overthrow at a lineout on his own 22 before charging up-field offering the ball to centre Josh Edwards who showed plenty of aggression to take play into the opposition half.  However, a series of penalties against the home team and a failure to find touch from hand gave Bridgend a good attacking position on the Pontypridd 22 that was turned into the opening points of the game when the visiting open-side was tripped in the process of chasing a speculative kick to the corner.

A mistake by Bridgend at the re-start was exploited when Adam Harcombe made a trademark charge from first receiver off the resultant scrum with prop Paul Minty providing fine support before the ball was recycled and spread across the other side of the field with Josh Edwards again riding tackles to afford wing Dale Hughes a rare half-chance of space on a narrow pitch but he was put into touch a few metres from the Bridgend line.  The visitors struggled to work themselves out of their own half and when Bridgend were caught offside on their own 22 a James Nicholas penalty deservedly drew Pontypridd level just before half-time.      

The winning points were scored minutes into the second half when an early Bridgend attack was stopped in its tracks by a thumping tackle by the impressive Josh Edwards that was harshly viewed as a tip-tackle by the referee.  The successful penalty was about as good as it got for Bridgend in the second half as Pontypridd took ever more control of the contest and rarely went behind their own 10m line.  The consistently reliable set-pieces allowed ball carriers Mike O’Conner and Max Day to run strongly at the defence and the pragmatic kicking of fly-half Shane Hutchinson kept Bridgend uncertain and gave opportunities for the outside backs but although Pontypridd were creating the chances they were frustrated by handling errors or the referee’s calls.

The final fifteen minutes saw Pontypridd work a clever lineout move between O’Conner and Minty to within stretching distance of the Bridgend line and the concerted Ponty pressure created three kickable penalty chances all uncharacteristically missed. There was even a chance right at the end of the final few frantic minutes when a probing kick that bobbled to the Bridgend line was energetically chased up by replacement wing Rhodri Garland and the clearance charged down by Dale Hughes but when the ball bounced the wrong way it just about summed up the afternoon for the hosts.     

Pontypridd Youth:

15. Josh Waughington  14. Sam Vaughan  13. Josh Edwards  12. Adam Harcombe  11. Dale Hughes  10. Shane Hutchinson  9. James Nicholas  1. Paul Minty  2. Nathan Evans  3. Callum Reed  4. Mike O’Connor (Capt.)  5. Jordan Eynon  6. Daniel Pritchard  7. Ieuan Evans  8. Max Day

Subs: 16. Chris Jones  17. Rhodri Garland  18. James Kelly  19. Tom Robinson  20. Gavin Steele  21. Jordan Rees  22. Luke Donovan     

Scorer: James Nicholas (penalty)