Swansea v Pontypridd – Match Preview

On Saturday 9th March Pontypridd travel to play Swansea in the Indigo Group Premiership, the match at St. Helen’s kicks off at 2:30pm.

Ponty’s last visit to St. Helen’s was nearly 18 months ago on Saturday 1st October 2022 and the match yielded a total of 67 points. The All Whites triumphed by a 45-22 score-line that afternoon, although Pontypridd did return to Sardis Road with a four-try bonus point.

Earlier this season the Valley Commandos claimed all five match points after beating Swansea by 35 points to 18 on Saturday 11th November – tries from Ben Burnell, Dale Stuckey, Joseph Scrivens and McCauley Rowley helped seal the win.

THE TEAM NEWS…

This week’s match is the first under new interim-Head Coach Chris Dicomidis and his newly assembled coaching team. The new regime have made four personnel changes to the XV that started last week’s match against Newport, along with two positional switches. There’s also a further two new face amongst the replacements.

There’s just one change in the backline with the scrum halves rotating, Harvey Nash coming in to start in place of Joel Raikes.

In the pack Ben Stephens is recalled to start at loosehead prop whilst Cally James and Joe Miles are drafted in to the back-row at openside flanker and no.8 respectively. The two positional switches sees skipper Kris Parker move into the second-row and Cai James switching from openside to blindside flanker.

On the bench there are returns to the matchday squad for Canadian international Sion Parry and prop Kian Mattravers.

Still injured and unavailable are Dale Stuckey, Liam Lloyd, Joseph Scrivens, McCauley Rowley and Ryan Wilkins, and the latest casualty joining them in the treatment room is Tom Devine. Gavin Parry is away with the Scotland U20s for their match against Italy.

The Pontypridd team selected to play Swansea is as follows:

15. Josh Phillips. 14. Niko Matawalu. 13. Garyn Smith. 12. Kyan Lewis. 11. Tom Edwards. 10. Ben Burnell. 9. Harvey Nash.

1. Ben Stephens. 2. Rob Jones. 3. Tom Harper. 4. Kristian Parker (c). 5. Macauley Cook. 6. Cai James. 7. Cally James. 8. Joe Miles.

Subs: 16. Curtis Greenslade. 17. Kian Mattravers. 18. Morgan Bosanko. 19. Mitch Barnard. 20. Aled Ward. 21. Sion Parry. 22. Joel Raikes. 23. Louis Rochefort-Shugar.

SUPPORTERS TRAVEL –

For Ponty Fans that have booked onto the supporters bus it will depart Sardis Road at 12:45pm. The bus will definitely be running on Saturday and at the time of writing there are still some spaces available – to book a seat on the bus to Swansea please call Phil Lycett on 01443 662561.

For those of you making your own way to the ground, the location is – St. Helen’s Rugby and Cricket Ground, Bryn Road, Swansea, SA2 0AR.

PRE-MATCH ENTERTAINMENT –

Prior to Swansea v Ponty, Mumbles U14s will be playing Burry Port U14s at the ground as a curtain raiser – midday kick-off in that match.

Make sure you get to Swansea and get behind Dico and the boys on Saturday!