French club to play Penarth Athletic
Here we go again! There will be no League action at the Rec for a whole month, between now and March 3rd, when St Peters visit Penarth for the second time this season, having lost 20-15 in the Mallett Cup, last November. However, with all League action cancelled for a whole month, there will be international flavoured rugby at the Athletic Field tomorrow (Friday) evening, when Penarth Athletic, will entertain their French friends from ‘Les Youkies’, a corporate club from Paris, at their second visit to Penarth. The kick off is a 7.15 pm and the entry is free.
After two consecutive high-scoring wins that somehow managed to inject a degree of optimism in the plating personnel of the battling Seasiders (Penarth 43 v Cardiff Quins 41 and Clwb Rygby 22 v Penarth 28), the inclement weather and the Six Nations programme conjured to bring this spell of good fortune to an end. The match against the Valley club Cambrian Welfare, scheduled for the previous weekend was postponed, and will be played on 21st of April, a week after another adjourned fixture, against Llantwit Fardre scheduled for April 14th. An almost identical scenario led to the cancellation of the match against Llantwit Fardre during the international break last November, with the WRU advising the clubs to postpone their fixtures, in case they fail to agree on a mutually convenient time for kick off. That suited the then struggling Llantwit Fardre 100%, but it failed to impress the Seasiders who had hit a patch of good form during the weeks before the match. The same seems to happen again. Talk about history repeating itself.
There is very little doubt that the Cambrian club is currently a stronger outfit than what Penarth could offer at the moment, but rugby matches have a peculiar metabolism, so no sane pundit would dare to predict the outcome of such a fixture. It is a fact that Penarth have developed a habit of upsetting nominally stronger outfits when they expect least, if the example of the one and only defeat suffered by the current League leaders Cilfynydd, defeated 24-17 by Penarth in October, is something to go by. For the past three seasons Penarth, blowing hot and cold, have revolved around the bottom of the table, finishing regularly in the eighth or ninth position. The same is happening right now, with Penarth 8th in the table, equal on points with St Peters, (27), whom they will play a fortnight after their visit to Cilfynydd on February 17th.
Cilfynydd is topping the table with 58 points, with Cambrian Welfare second with 46 points and Barry third with 45 points. Gilfach Goch is fourth with 42 points, and Aberdare is fifth with 39 points. At the bottom end of the table, Penarth and St Peters with 27 points each are 8th and 9th, Clwb Rygbi 10th with 26 points. Abercynon 11 with 15 points and Llantwit Fardre 12th with 15 points. But any computation based on the current table would be meaningless, given the fact that so many matches have been postponed. Neither the promotion end, nor the relegation zone can be accurately predicted with any degree of accuracy. While Penarth have played 15 matches so far, Gilfach Goch, who played only 11, could potentially finish top of the table above Cilfynydd , should they win their five postponed matches, while at the relegation end Llantwit Fardre also with four matches postponed could go up 5-6 place should they win all of them, including the Penarth tie. Basically, with seven matches left, Penarth need to win at least two, possibly three to be on the safe side, to escape the menace of relegation.
Caption :
A cheerful Penarth team after the match v Clwb Rygbi, which they won 28-22 last weekend:
Top (left-right) Ben Hill, Miles Jones, Alex Thau (captain), Rhys Morgan, Sean O’Sullivan, Richie Bowen, Matt Russell, Chris Mortimer, James Thatcher, Alex Fulton; Bottom (l-r), James Crothers, James Docherty, Mason Good, Iwan Baker, Owain Lord
