Npt Saracens 11 Pontypool 9

AFTER Pontypool suffered their second successive away defeat in Division One East on Saturday, captain Dai Smith has warned his side can ill-avoid many more slip-ups.

Pooler put in a below-par performance at newly promoted Newport Saracens, going down 11-9 and sliding to sixth in the table. UWIC meanwhile are already making the early running and if Pooler are to stay in contention for the sole promotion spot in April they cannot afford to drop too many more points.

A disappointed Smith said: "I reckon we're going to struggle if we lose more than another one or two. The winning team in this league will probably lose three or four at most.

"We probably will lose another somewhere down the road due to injuries or whatever but we have to look to be winning every game now. We'll re-group for Llanharan at training and put this behind us."

But forwards coach Steve Hill commented: "I don't think we should dwell on a couple of losses. We'll see where we are at Christmastime, we're still very optimistic of winning this league and the atmosphere in the camp is positive."

Stuart Lawrence's third penalty of the afternoon put Pontypool 9-3 up just before the break on Saturday, with opposite number Owain Biddescombe kicking one over for Saracens early on. But after a swift passing move, Biddescombe went over for a try deep into stoppage time which reduced the deficit to just a point at the interval.

Pontypool then received nothing for their efforts in a dour second half, in which a third Biddescombe penalty with five minutes to go was enough to signal another away defeat.

Hill added: "I felt the set pieces, the scrums and line outs, were good but for whatever reason we didn't show enough desire in the contact areas."

Pooler have now failed to win on the road since the opening day of the season. And although statistically they have one of the best defences in the division to date they are, like last season, simply failing to score points.