EACH week Pontypool RFC captain Ben Parry takes you exclusively inside the historic Pooler dressing room. Here he casts his eye over the defeat to Swansea on Saturday.

"After a great few weeks performance-wise at the club we was heading into Saturday's game against Swansea with a lot of confidence.

"We started the game playing up towards the band stand, and we knew the first 20 minutes were going to be crucial as we needed to set out stall out and let Swansea know that we meant business.

"Unfortunately this wasn't the case for the first half an hour. We were very flat and didn't really get out of the starting blocks.

"We allowed Swansea to beat us to the break down and as a group we know we need to win ever thing in that area for our game plan to work well.

"Going into the second half 17-5 down we knew that we had to up our work rate and go up a few gears if we wanted to win the game.

"We played a lot better in the second period and gave ourselves opportunities but just couldn't cross the white wash for a try.

"Having said that Swansea were a better side on the day and we only have ourselves to blame for that.

"Going away from home next week we need to raise the bar, but most importantly to get to the level of performance we've achieve over the last couple of weeks.

"Lastly, thanks to all our fans for your support on the weekend. You were fantastic as usual, and hope to see you all Saturday away to Tata Steel.