Vale spirits dampened

Two second-half tries by the home side condemned Ebbw Vale to their fourth consecutive Welsh/Scottish League defeat as Pontypridd's Fijian outside half Nicky Little punished Vale's indiscipline, landing four penalties.

This was a poor performance by Ebbw in a dour game of rugby dominated by defence rather than attack.

Before the game, Pontypridd's Chief Executive Gareth Thomas wrote in his programme notes that "Almost everyone involved or associated with Welsh Rugby recognises that some form of change is desperately needed to reverse the decline in the playing standards" and this game certainly reflected the latter.

Although the game contained a few flashes of creative brilliance when attacking skills were displayed, for the majority of the eighty minutes it was brute force against solid defence as the two packs became involved in a war of attrition.

Pontypridd may be part of the rebel six clubs looking to form Wales' premier league, but with both sides facing Cardiff and Newport this week, it will be a surprise if either team is anything other than comprehensively beaten.

Perhaps the minds of both teams were focused on bigger challenges yet to come, because as a contest, the game was over as early as the 44th minute. An interception from Pontypridd full-back Brett Davey was rounded off by centre Jon Bryant and his long-range try took the score from 16-6 to 23-6.

With just a few minutes of the second-half played, Ebbw suddenly had a mountain to climb and they never really got back in the game.

To be fair, some of the damage was done before kick-off as influential second row Neil Edwards withdrew with a neck injury as late as Friday night and Ebbw certainly missed his control at the line-out.

But one man does not make a team and for some reason they lost their discipline at rucks and mauls, giving away countless penalties against a home side eager to run the ball using their big men to crash down the channels.

Uncharacteristically, Ebbw gave away far too many penalties at the break-downs and everytime they got into a good scoring position referee Mr Richard Elliott was on hand to punish any indiscretions.

The Steelmen got nowhere near the level of performance displayed against Bridgend last week where they scored three tries in the first half, in the first half against Pontypridd they managed just two penalties from Gareth Cull, one at each end of the half, and struggled to get away from their own 22.

Two penalties from Little early on put Ponty 6-3 up before they really went to town on the Steelmen's defence with a well taken try. An intelligent kick put behind the defence from Pontypridd's Paul John put his side in a strong attacking position and a try soon followed when centre Sonny Parker wriggled out of the tackle before Australian second-row Brent Cockbain, brother of Wallaby Matt, crashed over for a converted try.

At 13-3 down, Vale attacked from the kick-off but sloppy ball from the line-out saw possession turned over and another chance to put Ebbw points on the board went begging.

Their running game was not working as their runners Kati Tuipulotu and Chay Billen were wrapped up by the blanket defence time and again.

With Billen sinbinned for persistent infringing, he was off the field when Pontypridd scored just after half-time and although Vale stuck to their task with full back Matt James scoring a well-worked try out wide, they never got back in the game.

When John went over for a try after Pontypridd worked clear of the Vale defence on a quick counter-attack taking the score through the thirty point barrier, the scoreline took on a flattering look to Ponty.

But as said before, both sides will need to step up their game if they are to avoid getting hammered by their more illustrious neighbours Cardiff and Newport.

*PICTURED: Ebbw Vale's Paul Matthews takes on Pontypridd's Corry Harris.