SLOPPY SEASIDERS SPURN BONUS

PENARTH 19 LLANISHEN 19 – Saturday  21 January 2017

After a respectfully observed minute’s silence in honour of Old Penarthians’ president Roy Churchill and with wing James Crothers celebrating 300 appearances for the club, the match itself was a bit of a let-down for the Seasiders. Faced with limited and unambitious opposition in Llanishen, they handed over three tries on a plate in the first twenty-five minutes, cruised to level terms in fifty, but were then unable to muster even the three points for a win, let alone a bonus point.

On a chilly afternoon with bright, low sun, it was the visitors that struck the first blow, but with ample assistance from Penarth. Reaction to a dodgy penalty award earned a further 10 metres and the subsequent maul released inside centre Nigel Gumbleton in the 22, running clean through a missed tackle and under the posts. As the Seasiders countered from the returned restart, the ball was passed straight to a Llanishen player and Gumbleton added a second out wide.

The Penarth response was enthusiastic, but fell well short of the mark.The referee had already demonstrated a clear low tolerance for slow ball from the breakdown, but this hadn’t filtered through to the players. Scoring chances and kicks at goal were missed and worse was to come as Llanishen gained a rare toehold in the Seasiders’ half. With the defence in place as the Llanishen scrum-half considered his options at a ruck, two defenders decided he was certain to pass right and moved to that side of the field. Observing this, the scrum-half simply passed left, where full-back Sam Williams cruised through the gap left and scored in the corner.

So far, Llanishen’s contribution to the game, apart from conceding penalties, was to take full advantage of glaring errors by their hosts and now enjoyed a 19-0 lead. At this point Penarth belatedly worked out what was going on, cut out the errors and regained control. The backs shipped quick scrum ball right along the line to Tom Smith, who made ground before chipping ahead. Huw Elias easily won the foot-race to take the ball at the first bounce and score.

All quiet again for a while, before the Seasiders again woke with a start and another flowing three-quarter move slowed briefly as Tom Smith was left too much to do in the corner. The ball was quickly recycled left where Alex Thau dummied over out wide.

Still trailing 12-19 at half time, Penarth were looking much more purposeful as the second period kicked off following the half-time pep-talk. Anthony Pine crossed early on, but multiple tacklers succeeded in preventing the touch-down. However, the Seasiders were now camped out in the Llanishen 22 and the visitors were collapsing scrums on a regular basis. As they eventually managed to stay on their feet for once, the Penarth eight steamed clean through and Thau crossed for the third try.

With thirty minutes remaining and the score at 19-19, there seemed to be nothing standing between the Seasiders and a comfortable bonus-point victory. To be fair, they tried pretty much everything, but were thwarted by high tackles, refereeing decisions, poor passes and other handling errors. Even when playing against 14 men as Llanishen lost a man to the bin, they couldn’t turn 15 minutes of constant pressure into any points at all. This culminated in a late decision to ‘take the points’ after another scrummaging penalty was awarded against the visitors, but the 30 metre kick was sliced wide.

This coming Saturday Penarth are the visitors to Y Parc, Abercynon. The score in the corresponding home fixture in September was 22-39, the Seasiders conceding six tries against two from Huw Elias and one from Alex Thau.

PENARTH Huw Elias, Tom Smith, Tom Luck ©, Chris Mortimer, James Crothers, Rhys Morgan (Tom Hillman), Sean O’Sullivan (Richard Merrett), James Docherty (Mason Good), Alan Doyle, Owen Thomas, Anthony Pine, Stuart Clarke (Aaron Ellis), Scott Mackie, Alex Thau

Scorers: Alex Thau (2 tries), Huw Elias (try)

Nathan Smith (2 conversions).

Division 2 East Central

Saturday 28th January 2017

Abercynon v PENARTH

Y Parc, Abercynon CF45 4RU

Kick-off 2.30pm