PONTY MAKE QUINS PAY FOR INDISCIPLINE
CARMARTHEN Quins were left kicking themselves for their second-half indiscipline that allowed Lewis Williams to kick Pontypridd to a narrow victory.
“The most obvious area where we lost the game is indiscipline,” said Quins head coach Emyr Phillips. “The most frustrating part of that is it is something we can control.
“The main talking point after the game was our second-half penalty count, which was up near 10. When you play against teams like Ponty, who are good at strangling the game, you can’t give that many away in one half and expect to win.
“That was the frustrating thing. We were losing field position and momentum and that is something we definitely need to address.
“We couldn’t get our game going because of those penalties and couldn’t get any decent field positions. The games we are losing at the moment we are giving away too many easy points.”
Ponty outside-half Williams held his nerve to land four out of his six kicks at goal to steal the win and take full advantage of Merthyr’s defeat to cut the gap at the top of the table to a mere five points.
Williams stepped up five minutes from time to kick a 45-metre kick at goal with a helping hand from the left-hand post to win the game.
Aled Thomas got the chance to open the scoring with less than two minutes on the clock after the first of a string of Ponty penalties, but the former Scarlets full-back was wide of the mark with that one before nailing a 35-metre shot 10 minutes later to open the scoring.
Wing Corey Howells injected some pace and power into the back line to score a try for the visitors which Williams converted. Yet by the break it was the Quins who were on top thanks to a super solo try from Wales Under-18 centre Osian Knott.
Thomas converted and then kicked a second penalty on the stroke of half-time to give his side a six-point lead. Ponty had the wind in the second half and Williams hit the mark with two of three shots at goal to level the scores at 13-13 before landing his late winner.
As the penalties mounted against the Quins so tight-head prop Javan Sebastian saw yellow, but his teammates ensured the scoreline didn’t change while he was on the sidelines.
When he did return he saw Williams whistle another penalty attempt from a wide angle just past the posts, and going into the final quarter it was still anyone’s game.
The Ponty pack did to the home side what they had done in the first half and dominated territory and possession and the kicking game from the visitors was much more effective than that of the Quins.
As hard as Haydn Pugh and his home pack tried to break the secondhalf stranglehold imposed by the Ponty pack, they simply ran out of steam and paid the price.