Captain’s preseason Blog

It’s been a tough old summer, one of the toughest I have been involved in with the conditioning work we have been put through from the S&C guys, and the hot weather we are not used having making things tougher.

From the preseason games completed you can see the effort that the boys have put in coming to fruition and hopefully this will help us start with a bang and carry us through the league and cup campaign. It’s no secret that we want to play a fast-paced brand of rugby with the surface we have at Sardis and the weapons we have out wide, our fitness is key to success as it showed in those last-minute victories last year.

Training has been competitive to say the least with plenty of new faces and promising youngsters from local clubs putting their hand up for selection. The competition in training is something the boys thrive on and really pushes yourselves to become better and give the coaches a headache.

The Premiership is a very competitive league with lots of quality within each team, it’s great to see that live games are going to be on TV and streamed again this season and hopefully we can showcase that the Premiership is fantastic product. With the likes of Cardiff and Newport likely favourites again we will be doing our all to push them until the very end.

Our aim at Pontypridd will be to challenge at the top end of the table and hopefully be in the position to bid for honours at the end of the season. A good cup run will also be the target after the disappointment of losing out in the quarter-final last year. The cup means a lot to the players, club, and its supporters, and we’ll make sure that it is in our focus.

We are coming off the back of two good preseason victories against London Welsh and Ealing Trailfinders Academy where we have had valuable game time against creditable opposition, trying out new combinations across the field, confidence is building and the boys cannot wait till that first league game.

We are fully concentrating on our own game and hopefully with a roaring Sardis Road we can put on a huge performance and start the league campaign with a W against our biggest rivals.

Kris Parker – 26/08/2022