Pontypridd climb to fifth with capital win

Cardiff 20 Pontypridd 43

PONTYPRIDD earned their second bonus-point victory in the space of 72 hours and moved up to fifth in the Principality Premiership in the process.

They followed up last Wednesday’s thrashing of Swansea with another dominant display at the Arms Park yesterday even though they only scored their fourth try with two minutes left on the clock.

The victory, which included 23 points from outside-half Lewis K Williams, keeps them in the hunt for a top three finish and sets them up nicely for this Wednesday’s encounter with rivals Cross Keys at Sardis Road.

And they couldn’t have dreamt of a much better first-half as tries from Mathew Nuthall and Gavin Dacey put them halfway towards a bonus point and Williams kicked with pin-point accuracy to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

He slotted two penalties to make it 6-0 early on but Rhys Patchell responded with a couple of his own to level things up.

But from then on everything fell Pontypridd’s way and the first try came when wing Nuthall scampered over in the corner. And it didn’t take long for a second to follow as Dafydd Lockyer held up the home defence in midfield to allow centre partner Dacey the space to coast under the posts.

With the visitors dominating, Williams took the chance to pile more misery onto the home team with a superb drop goal to make it 23-6 at the break.

A third Williams penalty after the restart increased the lead before the hosts got a try out of nothing when the ball fell to centre Matthew John and he took advantage of some woeful tackling to cross.

That seemed to give Pontypridd the jitters as only eight minutes later Cardiff skipper Rory Watts-Jones crashed over from close range.

However, Williams steadied the ship with a fourth penalty to make it 29-20 and the match was made safe when No 8 Dan Godfrey scored his third try of the week with another pushover effort following a yellow card for home centre Shaun Powell.

Another brilliant conversion from Williams saw the lead extended to 36-20 and all Pontypridd needed now was that important bonus-point try. And it came late on as replacement scrum-half Rhys Downes burrowed over from a metre out.

Cardiff

J Griffin (D Fish 46); T Williams, M John, S Powell, W Jones; R Patchell, T Rowlands (S Hopkins 51); K Halley, I Davies (J Hopkins 73), K Gay (J Monck 69), M Screech, D Partridge,  R Tucker, R Watts-Jones (capt), L Hamilton (A Lee 41)

Subs not used – Chris Bundy, Scott Sneddon

Pontypridd

H Thomson (K Morgan 76); C Clayton, G Dacey, D Lockyer (G Williams 80), M Nuthall; L K Williams, L Jones (R Downes 58); S Williams (K Knaggs 48), H Dowden (D Harris 76), P Palmer, C Hill, C Dicomidis (capt), J Thomas (C Locke 68), W O’Connor (T Hetherington 80), D Godfrey

Referee: Neil Hennessy (Cardiff)