Match Report

LLANTRISANT 10 – PENARTH 8 – Saturday 4 March 2017

There was a palpable sense of frustration amongst the players and supporters following this narrow loss on Saturday.

The team had brought a real sense of purpose and combative attitude to Llantrisant and during long periods of domination threw everything at the home side. The rolling maul was used effectively, pick and drive gained yards and backs cut in at searing angles to split the defensive line. But, and this is an enormous but, always at the point of score a small but critical error occurred; a little nudge forward or a fumbled take and the move petered out.

In the first half came a clear demonstration of why you can’t do this against a side lying second in the division. Penarth came out of the blocks like lightning. James Crothers gathering the home clearance, making yards out of defence and feeding the galloping Matt Allen in support. Allen’s powerful charge was foiled as he couldn’t reach Scott Mackie who was free on his inside and he was forced into touch just short.

A period in the home 22 sustained the pressure and produced a penalty as some consolation.

Both sides tried to play open rugby in unhelpful conditions, a sodden pitch and a bitter cross wind. Crothers again broke out powerfully from deep. Full back James Candy joined the attack only to be denied his touch down which was ruled as having followed a knock-on and then, when Chris Mortimer sliced through to ground under the posts, a forward pass was given.

Rugby can be cruel and all this Penarth domination was broken by a quick chipped Llantrisant clearance that bounced kindly and was gratefully touched down against the run of play. So Penarth had had all the pressure and just one penalty whilst Llantrisant from their only clear cut opportunity came away with seven points.

The second half brought some reward for Penarth effort. Scrum half Gareth Mathias was orchestrating his pack mauling effectively. This lead to an early touch down but the referee had seen some crossing in the attack and gave a relieving penalty.
Penarth regathered and the hard working front eight ground their way across the line once more. This time Alex Thau’s try was granted and James Docherty’s conversion gave Penarth the slenderest 7 – 8 lead.

Immediately this lead was sacrificed as the referee adjudged a series of infringements by which Penarth lost firstly territory and ultimately three more points.

Unbowed by this, Penarth started to feed in fresh legs to relieve those that had put in mighty efforts already and returned mainly to the business of making slow but sure progress through the domination of the pack. One dazzling exception to this came from the versatile Mortimer who glided across the whole Llantrisant defensive line before side stepping through and breaking three tackles before he could get no further and the defence just had time to re-form.

This was the last sparkle, there followed continued unstinting effort and wave after wave of Penarth pressure but all ending in frustrating errors. An outstanding display from much the better side on the day who deserved more than a solitary bonus point.

Penarth:- James Candy; James Docherty; Tom Luck (capt.); Chris Mortimer; James Crothers; Mitch Hickey (Tom Hillman); Gareth Mathias (Rhys Morgan). Elliot Smith (Stuart Clarke); Alex Thau; Scott Mackie; Anthony Pine (Aaron Ellis); Matt Allen; Alan Doyle; Mason Good; Sean O’Sullivan (Kieran Ryan).