SEASIDERS UNABLE TO CHASE THE GAME

Penarth 0 St Peters 62 – Saturday 27 September 2014

Of course the better side won, but this was chiefly because visitors St Peters were able to field something more like a first-choice 15 than their injury-ravaged hosts. With few players surviving from the previous week, things soon got worse as Nathan Palmer hobbled off with a thigh injury after only 10 minutes as the blinside flanker ran in the Rocks’ first try in the corner. Lloyd Davey came on to replace him at full-back.

By the end of the first quarter, the Seasiders were already three tries down and a fourth arrived six minutes later as their left wing completed his hat-trick. Half-time arrived with the visitors sitting pretty at 22-0 in the lead.

Elliott Smith retired injured during the interval, but things were about to get a lot worse. St Peters scored again through their outside centre three minutes into the second half, but the move left Keiron Carpenter on the deck and a lengthy delay ensued as he was treated and stretchered off.

This left Penarth reduced to 14 players, as the bench was already empty and numbers soon told as the visitors quickly ran in another two tries against a badly stretched defence. First the inside centre ran straight at the defence and then the left wing benefitted from a long mis-out pass on half-way to outflank the Penarth back-line for his fourth. Yet another followed with ten minutes remaining as one of the replacements (one of two players wearing the 5 shirt at that point) and then the final indignity as James Crothers was yellow-carded for a ruck offence. Although the Seasiders finished the game with 13 players, they held out until just before the full-time whistle, when the blindside flanker ghosted through a sparse defence to go under the posts for his second try.

Clearly the Seasiders faced an uphill task from the outset and while they struggled to hold the defence together and rarely saw enough ball to threaten, there were individual heroics throughout. Kevin Maddocks turned in a solid display at outside half, many years after his last appearance for the club, while Richard Howells and Chris Grant were tireless in an over-worked second row. Absolutely nothing was shirked despite the depressingly deteriorating situation.

That’s not to take anything away from St Peters, who proceeded in a workmanlike manner and could rely a handful of players with a touch of class, who shared the ten tries between them.

So we move on to the next game, which takes the Seasiders to Llandaff Fields to face one of the other early-season pacesetters, Clwb Rygbi Cymry Caerdydd.
PENARTH: Nathan Palmer [Lloyd Davey], Louis Chandler, Tom Luck, Keiron Carpenter, James Crothers, Kevin Maddocks, Rhys Morgan, Richard Merrett, Jerome Bryan, Richard Howells, Chris Grant, Scott Mackie, Elliot Smith, Geraint Blake

Swalec League Division 2 East Central
Saturday 27th September 2014
Clwb Rygbi Caerdydd v PENARTH
Llandaff Fields
Kick-off 2.30pm