SLIPSHOD SEASIDERS PRESSURED OUT OF IT

TREHERBERT 22 PENARTH 8 – Saturday 23 April 2016

In a match long viewed as a banker facing bottom club Treherbert, the Devils certainly started like men possessed and it took the Seasiders some time to come to terms with the pressure. The hosts totally dominated the early exchanges, which meant that Penarth struggled to gain any sort of useful possession for twenty minutes.

The good news was that they weathered the storm and came to terms with it; the bad news is that as soon as they had any ball to play with, they frittered it away with an astonishing sequence of handling errors.

However, when James Docherty drew the Seasiders level at 3-3 after 22 minutes, they were making ground in the scrums and successive solo runs by Huw Elias kept the play firmly camped in the home 22. Unfortunately, this was as good as it got, as the game descended into thuggery and farce. First openside flanker Wez Owen saw yellow and minutes later, yet another outbreak of violence resulted in Owain James and home lock Ross Barclay being consigned to the bench.

As if all this disruption at a time when Penarth were finally getting on top wasn’t enough, the referee had finally had it with the foul-mouthed barracking from the local wits and ordered the culprit-in-chief from the ground. Since no-one from the host club was willing to lend him a hand in achieving this, play was suspended for fully 13 minutes.

This whole sorry business clearly had a greater effect on the visitors’ concentration and they never again posed any sort of real threat to the exultant hosts. That’s not to say the Seasiders were lacking in effort, but as Treherbert piled on the pressure and ran in two tries through full-back Lee Stone and captain Scott Barclay, they led 15-3 at a long-delayed half-time.

At the start of the second half, both sides were as bad as each other in spurning try-scoring opportunities. Penarth had clearly worked out that salvation lay in running the bulkier hosts around the field a bit, but this is where the suspect handling came back to bite them and each promising move broke down.

Treherbert moved further into the lead after 49 minutes as they over-threw to an attacking line-out and flanker Owen was first to the crazily bouncing ball as it crossed the try-line. Elias, making a rare start at outside-half, had realised that the only way the Seasiders were going to cross the line was for him to keep it in hand and take them on himself. He came close to creating two tries with this approach, but each time Penarth, faced with an enthusiastic home defence, managed to avoid scoring.

Until the last minute that is, when Elias looked for support on half-way, found none and set off on yet another jinking run which carried him into the home 22.Veering left, he fed replacement wing Ben Hill on the touchline, who beat two defenders to score in the corner.

The Seasiders’ final game away at St.Peters on Tuesday 10 May now takes on a huge significance. Both 9th-placed Abercynon and 10th-placed Pontyclun can theoretically overtake Penarth, so a failure to turn up at Minster Road is simply not an option.

PENARTH James Docherty, Paul Collett, Rhys Morgan, Tom Luck, Tom Hillman, Huw Elias, Chris Mortimer [Ben Hill], Jerome Bryan, Mason Good, Alan Doyle [Sean O’Sullivan], Owain James [Louis Chandler], Richie Howell, Scott Mackie, Elliott Smith, Alex Thau [Riyad Aukbarally]

Scorers: Ben Hill (Try), James Docherty (Penalty)