Free Press Sport
Pontypool Town are narrowly defeated by Abergavenny Thursdays
12:59pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012
Ponty Town 1 Abergavenny Thursdays 2 Having stooped as low as they could possibly go at Rhymney in their last outing, Ponty were in some urgent need of bouncebackability with the visit of Abergavenny Thursdays to Albion Road.
The sides drew 1-1 earlier in the season in a very close encounter and it was a very similar story for this match.
The visitors started the brighter with lots of possession but without any real threat on goal and when Ponty finally got into their rhythm they looked the more likely to score.
Then against the run of play, keeper Justin Silver hit a blind spot in the bright sunshine and flapped at a cross only for the rebound to be fired in to give the visitors a lead after half an hour.
However, as Ponty's work rate and commitment grew, so did their confidence as they continued to mount the pressure on the visitors' goal and the reward came on the stroke of half-time when a David Roberts header was goal bound only to be cruelly stopped by a hand.
The visitors' captain got lucky with just a caution but nothing was going to stop Leigh Ford equalising from the penalty spot as he so cooly did in the previous fixture.
With the teams so evenly matched in the first half, the second half was much more of an open game as unfortunately dictated by the visitors taking the lead again within minutes of the re-start with a swift counter attack.
Once more, Ponty pressed for an equaliser as young striker Jamie Hatherall worked effortlessly for the team by chasing down lost causes, putting defenders under pressure and was closest to equalising when his shots were blocked in some last gasp defending from the visitors.
Despite their efforts Ponty just couldn't find a way through a stubborn defence and had to settle for a narrow defeat, although many positives can be taken from such a promising team performance.