Cinderford suffer reverse to Welsh raiders

CINDERFORD lost their first pre-season trial friendly at home to Welsh Premier League side Pontypool after being well tested ahead of the new National One campaign.

The match was split into four 20-minute periods to give the entire squad a chance to impress, but head coach Phil Greenaway was at Twickenham with Gloucester for the Middlesex Sevens.

The game was lost in the second period when the Foresters’ Welsh opponents ran in three unanswered tries, but Cinderford nearly snatched it at the end with a late surge.

Pontypool opened the scoring after just six minutes when they had numbers out wide in Cinderford’s 22 and their right winger touched down in a corner, but the conversation was missed.

Nearly 10 minutes later the scores were level when Cinderford’s pack rumbled over the line after winning a five-metre line-out and lock Chris Jones emerged with the ball.

With minutes remaining in the first quarter, the Dockham Road crowd thought their team had taken the lead when Chris McNeil barraged over the line following some great hands from halfway.

But the referee said he was held up and blew for the end of the first 20 minutes.

Following a host of changes Pontypool then scored three converted tries to stretch away to 26-5 at half-time.

With seven minutes of the third period gone Cinderford began their comeback when second row Danny Wright threw a dummy and stretched out an arm to score.

New signing from Stourbridge Ali Bressington landed a great conversion from out wide to make it 26-12.

But Pontypool slammed the door shut with their most decisive converted try just two minutes later which ultimately won them the game.

The home team then scored two tries in the fourth quarter to go within a converted score of drawing.

Wilcox showed a flash of brilliance when he cut through the Pontypool defence before offloading to Brett Turner to crash over, giving his young stand off an easy conversion.

Jake Carter rounded things off from a scrum in Pontypool’s 22 with Wilcox adding another two points.

Source: thisisgloucestershire