RESILIENT SEASIDERS SIMPLY OUTPACED

PENARTH 0 PONTYPOOL UNITED 26

With Penarth’s home fixture against St Peters being postponed due to the Rocks’ visit to Nant Conwy in the quarter-finals of the Swalec Plate (they lost 21-5: featured on Scrfum V Sunday), a friendly was arranged against Div 2 (E) Pontypool United.

It’s been many years since the two clubs met, as the present district-based league structure effectively prevents it. The visitors are currently second in their division and looking a good bet for promotion, while the Seasiders started the game in sixth place in theirs.

The opening phases were mainly dominated by United, but the Seasiders’ defence held firm and didn’t miss a tackle until the 14th minute when the Pontypool left wing zig-zagged extravagantly through the Penarth 22 and under the posts.

There was no further score for 35 minutes. Not for want of trying, as Anthony Pine received a pass on his own 22 with limited options. The lock nevertheless took the opposition on, passing in the tackle to Huw Elias who ran it up the tramlines over halfway before handing over to Scott Mackie who fed Dan Seal. Illegally tackled, the United was binned.

No points were gained from the attacking line-out and the same resulted from a serious Tom Luck foray into the visitors 22 minutes later. The Seasiders dominated the remainder of the half with waves of attacks, with Elias coming close to breaking the deadlock

The second half brought a number of personnel changes and Penarth continued their search for the equalising score until the 50th minute when a United clearance was missed and they broke out. They had numbers on the right touchline and the ball was worked to the right wing who gave his opposite number the slip and ran in a try from 50m.

It’s amazing how quickly you can lose a game you’ve been competitive in and the Seasiders suffered another familiar collapse as Pontypool put the game to bed with a rapid-fire brace of tries. First their replacement number 8 burst clear down the middle with the acceleration of a centre-threequarter and fed his outside-centre who crossed in the corner, their number 5 lock showed an even more puzzling turn of speed and it was the speedy number eight himself who raced clear to score the fourth.

As they usually do, Penarth controlled the last quarter, but still couldn’t turn possession and territory into consolation points. In the final move of the game, United finally laid hands on a ball they hadn’t seen much of for twenty minutes and the number five was off again, felled only by a tremendous unattributed ankle-tap.

Obviously this was a disappointing result from such and evenly-contested friendly, but it was an excellent run-out against serious opposition for several young players who aren’t yet first team regulars such as Mitch Hickey, Harrison Pugsley and Ollie Shaw.

The Seasiders dropped a place to seventh as Gilfach Goch edged past with a win against Clwb Rygbi Cymry Caerdydd. The next league fixture will be a week next Saturday, away at Llantrisant.

PENARTH Huw Elias (Ollie Shaw), James Docherty, Tom Luck ©, Chris Mortimer, James Crothers (Tom Smith), Mitch Hickey, Owen Rees (Gareth Mathias), Sean O’Sullivan, Mason Good, Alan Doyle, Dan Seal, Anthony Pine, Matt Allen, Alex Thau, Scott Mackie (Harrison Pugsley)

Division 2 East Central

Saturday 4th March 2017

Llantrisant v PENARTH

Cefn Mably, Llantrisant CF72 8HA

Kick-off 2.30pm