Saturday 23 November 2013

Penarth 17 – Pontyclun 16

To look at the final score you would be forgiven for believing this to have been an 80 minute cliff-hanger of a match. This is only true for the final minutes. Up until then it had been difficult to work out how a dominant Penarth could not be comfortably secure of victory.

It didn’t help the home side to ship what was effectively a 14 point deficit in the opening minutes. Seven of these points were actually conceded when Pontyclun number 7 Rose saw a gap, opted for a quick tap penalty, darted through and released his support for a touch down under the posts.

Seeking instant redress James Docherty looked up at a miss-aligned defence, skipped through and spread the ball. Sadly, with wing James Crothers facing only fresh air the final pass flew 2 meters in front of him. So a 7 point reply went begging.

This then became a bit of a frustrating pattern for the home side. They quickly established that despite remaining a fluent attacking threat the visitor’s defensive line up was suspect. This led to exciting home breaks again by Docherty; by mazy running from both centres, James Thatcher and Mike Gubb. James Candy burst through from full back and wings Crothers and Ben Donovan also made inroads. The home back line was rampant.

At the same time the pack was doing its job and more; noticeably shoving Pontyclun off their own ball, by smart little breakaways with a slip pass back inside from Mike Clare to scrum half Rhys Morgan and particularly a couple of hugely enjoyed charges from Jon Boland scattering opponents in his wake.

The frustration was that in all this period of carving great swathes through the opposition the only concrete benefit was a single penalty conversion. Time and again try scoring was denied by a dropped final pass, a slight knock on, poor off load or similar error.

As so often it is the side under the cosh that scores. So it was that Pontyclun said thanks for a penalty and Penarth went in at half time 3 – 10 in arrears.

But they stuck to the task and positive signs were still there, with a stream of line out possession supplied by Boland and set piece domination. Chris Mortimer for Rhys Morgan and Geraint Blake for Matt Sutton were added to the mix and Penarth reverted to the simple stuff.

Thatcher collected loose ball and elusively made all the yards needed for a line out deep into Pontyclun territory. Boland duly secured possession for the aggressive maul. This wasn’t immediately successful so the dose was administered once more with close quarters master Clare claiming the resulting drop down.

With the scores now level a home win looked well on the cards. Fate then took a bizarre twist with fly half Docherty yellow carded for hands in the ruck! Pontyclun benefited from the converted penalty then yet another leaving the still dominant Penarth anxiously six points adrift with only ten minutes remaining.

It looked as if the old bitter lesson of victory going to the side which took points on the few occasions they were available would come true again and the home supporters began the nibbling of finger nails in real earnest.

To their delight and relief in equal measure Penarth got back to what they do immaculately. One more time it went to Boland in the line out, smuggled to the safety of the maul with Joe Page capping another vigorous performance by dropping over the line. The conversion was by no means certain but Docherty remained cool as ever to add the two points for the narrowest of victories.

Still things for Penarth to work on but a performance of tenacity and determination against a very good side who were clearly second best on the day.

On Saturday 7th December Penarth are away at Aberdare.

The next home fixture is Saturday 28th December against league leaders Cardiff Quins.

Penarth:- James Candy; Ben Donovan; James Thatcher; Mike Gubb; James Crothers; Rhys Morgan (Chris Mortimer); Gary Power (capt.); Joe Page; Sean O’Sullivan; Stuart Clarke; Jon Boland; Scott Mackie; Mike Clare; Matt Sutton (Geraint Blake).

SWALEC Plate Round 1

Penarth 3 – Rhydyfelin 38 – Saturday 26 October 2013
One plus in the generally disappointing WRU rearrangement of the annual cup competitions is the chance to measure your team against higher level opposition. With Penarth on a bit of a roll and sitting in the upper regions of Division 3 Saturday’s plate clash with a team one division up had this potential.

So it was sad that the settled and successful home side was ripped apart by lack of player availability. Whilst the back division was relatively unaltered, the front 8 took the field with two scrum halves in the back row and an out half in the front row! From being so dominant up front this season that opponents have three times been reduced to claiming uncontested scrums; this time it was Penarth claiming them from the off.

Not a great situation for Richard Ball to celebrate his 100th appearance for the club but celebrate he did by putting himself into the thick of the action all afternoon.

In fact Richard’s application to the cause was typical of all the home 15 who stuck at it to the end and left the field with great credit for their efforts. Such was their application that the senior side failed to make any headway against them for the best part of an hour.

The early stages were even- stevens with both fifteens playing a wide running game encouraged by Mr Paul Richards, brought in from Worcester to supervise affairs, having no truck with the visitors slowing down release of the ball. From one such infringement Mike Hurley gained 3 points to give Penarth the lead after 20 minutes.

Within 10 minutes the Rhydyfelin skipper struck back being at the end of some slick passing to touch down for the visitors.

Nevertheless Penarth remained more than competitive. The work rate of Grant Robson at scrum half was outstanding and telling breaks from Ben Donovan, James Crothers, Rhys Morgan plus Richard Ball from the pack were keeping the visitors alert.

Half time arrived with the score a respectable 3-5 to Rhydyfelin and although restarting into a stiff breeze Penarth continued to take the game to the opposition with ball being gained and retained energetically by the scratch front 8. However a couple of ominous signs had begun to appear. The home side were finding it harder to secure their own line out ball and the visitors were bringing their main attacking assets of a fleet and left wing and elusive full back into play.

So it was that after nearly an hours’ sterling effort Penarth were powerless to prevent visiting pressure from creating gaps and centre Lucas profiting. Within five minutes full back Tottle showed just how difficult he is to nail in open play and a further five minutes later he did it again.

When this was followed by left wing Close motoring past all challengers the home crowd expected a rout. Instead there was a stirring resurge and all out home effort which deserved far better after an easy three points were spurned in favour of pressure on the line only for possession to be turned over and for Tottle again to turn defence into an individual score.

Next week it’s back to league business and Penarth visit Wattstown for an interesting top of the table clash.

PENARTH; Huw Morgan, Ben Donovan, Rhys Morgan, Mike Hurley, James Crothers, James Thatcher, Grant Robson, James Docherty, Sean O’Sullivan, Gary Power, Richard Ball, Matt Sutton, Mike Clare, Owain George, Chris Mortimer.

SEASIDERS WINNING RUN CONTINUES

Tylorstown 13 Penarth 27 – Saturday 12 October 2013

The Seasiders’ run of form continues and although there was little to commend in the way they arrived at their third successive away win, the fact remains that they’ve now risen to a healthy fourth place and if they ever get their act together, someone’s going to take a real pasting.

Let’s be clear, Tylorstown are a pale reflection of the team they were three years ago when they went up to Division 2 E with Penarth and offered little apart from technique and commitment around the breakdown.

The visitors, on the other hand, enjoyed their usual domination up front, but struggled badly to exploit this; winning comfortably, but without what would have been an entirely justifiable bonus point. As early as the seventh minute, the Seasiders went into the lead as they drove a 5m scrum over for a Mike Clare try, but the Tigers exerted pressure from the restart and pulled back 3 points from a penalty.

The next twenty minutes belonged chiefly to Penarth, but a catalogue of errors only led to the hosts reducing the arrears with a further penalty. With five minutes remaining to half-time and little to show for the wind advantage, Mike Hurley converted a 30m penalty in front of the posts and you began to wonder if the visitors would ever exploit a clear superiority without messing it up whenever they got close to the line.

The answer came as they drove yet another 5m scrum and although control was again lost, this time it was due to an illegal intervention by the home scrum-half, who departed with a yellow card.  The resulting scrum was also driven, again control was lost, but Richard Ball scooped up the loose ball and fed Joe Page who scored in the corner.

At the start of the second half, the Seasiders were destroying the home scrum at will, but failed to gain any advantage at all through predictable back play and a mounting error count. 16 minutes into the half, they finally gained a kickable penalty, which Hurley converted to ease the visitors into a more comfortable lead at 6-20, but then they finally managed to put the game to bed with the move of the game.

This was the briefest of glimpses of the short-passing game they’ve teased us with before and this is clearly the way they want to play.  With the ball passing through perhaps a dozen pairs of hands, play surged from one touchline to the other and finally James Docherty put James Crothers in at the corner, the one-the-spot referee instantly awarding the try despite the bizarre protestations of the late-arriving Tylorstown touch-judge.

The hosts came back strongly in the remaining four minutes, claiming a late consolation try, but there is much work to be done on the training field to convert the coaches’ clear vision into something which looks more convincing than this good Penarth team playing badly.

PENARTH         James Candy, Ben Donovan, Mike Hurley, Michael Gubb, James Crothers, James Thatcher (Nathan Smith), Rhys Morgan (Owain George), David Morgan (James Docherty), Joe Page, Sean O’Sullivan, Richard Ball (Ben James), Stuart Clarke, Geraint Blake, Mike Clare, Matt Sutton.

League Division 3 South-East

Saturday 19^th October 2013

PENARTH v Porth Harlequins

The Athletic Field, Lavernock Road

Kick-off 2.30pm

Seasiders’ Work in Progress

Penarth 19 St Peters 34 – Saturday 28 September 2013

A settled Penarth team faced old Cardiff rivals St Peters at the Athletic Field last Saturday with some confidence after an impressive away win against Gwernyfed. The trouble was that the Rocks were at their streetwise best and won a game that was far closer than the score-line suggests.

There were various factors in play here and while visiting outside-half Jon Morris claimed a personal tally of 24 points, the real key to the game was how the St Peters back row neutralised, or were allowed to neutralise the Seasiders’ midfield.

Not only was there little cohesion in the back play, but a lot of the Rocks’ possession came from sloppy kicking out of hand and this came down to the pressure exerted by the visitors’ flankers.

St Peters opted for a high-speed, high-pressure game and three penalties from Morris pushed them into a 3-9 lead after only 16 minutes, but the Seasiders piled on the pressure, winning a series of penalties in the opposition 22, although crucially without reward.

Former Penarth number 8 Rob O’Brien earned a yellow card on the half-hour and Penarth finally got over the whitewash. The home backs found space in midfield and Joe Page drove to the line before being tackled. Matt Sutton picked up and headed right before delivering a defence-splitting pass back left where Page put James Candy in at the corner.

At this point, two things happened, one of which was going to affect the course of the game significantly. First James Beaton received a yellow card, reducing the Seasiders to 14 players and then Morris converted the penalty to put his side 8-12 in the lead. In the final 10 minutes of the half, the roof fell in on the Seasiders’ ambitions.

The Rocks scored two tries in swift succession from Morris and the returning O’Brien and although Penarth pulled one back themselves on the stroke of half time as Scott Mackie went over from a driven scrum, the score had moved on from 8-9 to 13-26 in nine miunutes and the visitors were in the clear.

Of course the wind advantage the Rocks had enjoyed for the opening 40 minutes had disappeared by the time the teams had turned around. Mike Hurley reduced the arrears with an early penalty, but Morris cancelled this out ten minutes later. St Peters put the matter beyond doubt with a second O’Brien try with thirteen minutes to go and late Hurley penalty was little consolation.

The 2-3 try count emphasises the closeness of the contest and the difference between the sides was technically down to the visitors’ preference for kicking penalties, compared to the Seasiders’ inclination to go for tries. A trip to bottom-of-the-table Brecon next Saturday will hopefully provide some lighter relief.

PENARTH James Candy, Ben Donovan, Mike Hurley, Michael Gubb, James Crothers, James Thatcher, Rhys Morgan (Chris Mortimer), Richard Merrettt, Joe Page, Sean O’Sullivan (David Morgan), Richard Ball (Geraint Blake), Jon Boland, Scot Mackie, Matt Sutton (Mike Clare).

League Division 3 South-East
Saturday 5th October 2013
Brecon v PENARTH
Parc de Pugh
Kick-off 2.30pm