Penarth Bowled Over at Pentyrch

Pentyrch 38 – 26 Penarth (HT 28-5)

And so any dreams of the Millenium Stadium in April are cast aside for another year as a calamitous performance, admittedly interjected with flashes of brilliance, saw Penarth bow out of the WRU Bowl in the second round at Pentyrch last Saturday. With just 1 win in 6 matches thus far this season this Seasiders squad need to start turning some of their undoubted promise into results and fast.

Penarth were on the back foot from the outset as a determined Pentyrch side came at them hard and fast and made the most of a strong breeze to dominate territory and possession in the early stages. Then went 7 points up after just 10 minutes and were soon back in the Penarth 22 where centre Rhys Beynon was shown a yellow card for retaliating to some not insignificant provocation from the home outside half. Penarth held firm with 14 men but Pentyrch breached the Penarth defence again just before the half hour mark as outside centre Marley ghosted through some poor tackling to score under the posts.

Penarth then sparked into life with Morgan Smith breaking the line before feeding Beynon who offloaded beautifully to second row Harrison Pugsley who in turn showed great hands to feed Harry Williams to cross for an unconverted score near the corner.

But any thoughts of Penarth being back in the match were soon dismissed as Penarth contrived to concede two of the softest tries you’ll see all season. First a penalty deep in their own 22 was taken quickly rather than hoofed to touch only for the second pass to go to ground where it was promptly hoofed on by Pentyrch centre Huw Rees who then fell on the ball for an easy score. And if that wasn’t bad enough within 5 minutes a horrible mix in the Penarth back line saw the ball passed straight into the hands of Rees to scamper over for another 7 point score. At 28-5 at half time there seemed little hope for the Seasiders.

After what can only have been some harsh words at half time Penarth flew out of the traps and after a period of pressure a fine miss pass from Smith saw Harry Williams open his legs to make a decisive break before feeding Spencer Robinson who showed a clean pair of heels to the defence to go under the posts to close the gap to 16 points with Tom Smith’s conversion.

However, Penarth must still have been basking in their own minor glory because no less than 3 mintues later they were back under their own posts after Pentyrch winger Nathan Williams ran fully 50 metres without so much as a finger being laid on him to score in the corner.

For all their current technical frailities, you cannot say that this Penarth side lacks heart. They put aside the setback and battered the Pentyrch line for the next 10 minutes resulting in a deserved try for Beynon who was a thorn in the home team’s side for the whole game, Rhys Morgan converted and the gap was back to 14 points. It now obviously goes without saying that Pentyrch scored next and that the try was soft and Penarth should have done better, and the game was now lost.

Nevertheless Penarth had the final saw as a mixture of offside and high tackle using no arms saw Penarth collect a penalty try for their troubles to leave the final score 38-26 and end their Bowl journey.

There are many reasons to enjoy the spirit and style of this Penarth team and the backline in particular holds some real gems in the shape of Rhys Beynon, Owain Lord, Tom Smith and the flying wingers Harry Williams and Spencer Robinson who have accumulated three tries each already this season. However, despite the sides ability to put together phases of play which are beyond many at this level they also seem to lack the ability to carry out some of the basics anywhere near adequately enough to really stamp their mark. The number of missed tackles, dropped balls, unnecessary offloads and wayward or absent kicks must be of huge frustration to the coaching team of Matt Bolton and Tristan Davies. To turn the common proverb if this Seasider’s team can learn to walk as well as it can run then they can be a real force this season but there seems to be a lot of hard work to do to make that happen.

Penarth: R.Merrett (S.O’Sullivan) L.Richards, Ryan Jones, H.Pugsley, O.Thomas, O.George (A.Rigby), A.Fulton, C.Mortimer, R.Morgan(c), M.Smith (K.Maddox), S.Robinson, R.Beynon, O.Lord, H.Williams (B.Hill), T.Smith

Scores – H.Williams (t), S.Robinson (t), R.Beynon (t), Penalty Try,  R.Morgan (con), T.Smith (con).