A Great Day for Penarth RFC

Brecon 13 Penarth 25 – Saturday 18 April 2015
This was special for Penarth. The team still in danger of relegation visits the team set to celebrate a runaway championship win in front of its home crowd and imposes itself to achieve a bonus point victory. This is straight out of the story book.

The bare facts are that in otherwise perfect conditions Penarth first faced the wind and held Brecon to a 10 point lead. In the second half they scored 22 unanswered points including four tries.

Behind these facts lay a determined, disciplined effort from all the players for the full eighty minutes. They were never going to be second best to the league leaders and they never were.

The match started with Brecon setting up camp in Penarth’s 22. Despite regular short carries from the base of the scrum by number eight, Elliot Smith and half breaks from the three quarters pressure could not be convincingly relieved. So it was inevitable that amongst the stubborn tackling and scrabbling for loose ball that a penalty was conceded giving the home side first blood.

But it was by no means one way traffic. Second row Stuart Clarke emerged with a stunning mid field break, from centre Alex Thau was punching holes and centre colleague Tom Luck showed real pace running off Gareth Mathias deft pass. But the final touch was missing and these promising breaks did not produce points.

Nevertheless the line was protected for a full half hour before Brecon demonstrated why they are champions. Possession was moved clear of the forwards and distributed dizzily from hand to hand culminating in outside half Newman darting through the inevitable gap.

This shook Penarth a little and they almost immediately conceded a penalty in front of the posts. Taking this gave Brecon a 13 – 0 lead with five minutes until the second half and loss of wind advantage.

An all out effort by Penarth just to stop matters getting worse was expected. Instead of which we were treated to the evergreen prop Sean O’Sullivan stealing critical Brecon attack ball and setting up a stirring team effort to work back up field where James Docherty gratefully accepted the opportunity to reduce arrears by 3 points.

Resuming play Jerome Bryan was given a hard earned break from front row duty with Richard Merrett taking his place.

Docherty straightway tested the wind with a steepler from which Penarth tried the rolling maul. At first this was unsuccessful, although clearly over the line the ball was not grounded. So they simply repeated the dose for hooker Joe Page to mark his welcome return with a touchdown.

It was the rolling maul that led to the next score. Penarth were now dominating up front and only being stopped illegally which produced a yellow card to make it even more difficult for the home side. Elliot Smith who had been tidying around the base of the scrum all game found the blind side clear enough for him to crash over. With 20 minutes to go the score stood level at 13 – 13.

Scrum half Mathias had been outstanding, providing steady service to his backs and doing some impressive ripping to turn possession over. Now he fed Luck whose pace onto the ball allowed him to put in three bouncing side steps before touching down close enough in to ensure the conversion.

Brecon realised their danger and mounted waves of attack by their talented back division only to find such steely determination from the whole Penarth team in defence that they could make no impression.

In fact it was Penarth again who gained first territory then a very kickable penalty. More than one travelling supporters’ heart was in their mouth to see Docherty refuse the easy chance of a two score lead and to chip for touch. Those hearts stayed well and truly in mouths as the first line out produced bobbling ball that no attacker could control. The following scrum produced Penarth ball but also a forward pass. At last the front eight got the heave on to destroy the home effort to gain their own ball and allowed the deserving Elliot Smith another score.

So five points in the bag and excepting an extraordinary series of results elsewhere second division rugby is secured for the Athletic ground next season. Whilst the defeated home side peeled off for photos and bubbly to celebrate promotion the real celebration was the satisfaction in their visitors of another outstanding team performance

Penarth:- Rhys Morgan; Nathan Palmer; Alex Thau; Tom Luck; James Crothers; James Docherty; Gareth Mathias; Jerome Bryan (Richard Merrett); Joe Page; Sean O’Sullivan; Mike Clare; Stuart Clarke; Scott Mackie; Adan Cole; Elliot Smith.