SEASIDERS MAKE STRONG CASE FOR PROMOTION
Penarth 42 Aberdare 3
Last Saturday morning, the Division 3 (SE) promotion race was an open affair involving four clubs, but following Penarth’s crushing defeat of close rivals Aberdare, leaders St.Peters and third-placed Tylorstown should be feeling very nervous indeed. The Cynon Valley club started the day with a game in hand and only three points behind the Seasiders, but by the time 80 minutes were up they wouldn’t have been able to see them with a stepladder and field-glasses!
A strong-looking Penarth side with number eight Aaron Ellis making his debut actually fell behind as centre M.Rafferty converted a first-minute penalty, but once James Docherty had replied after 5 minutes, there was only going to be one team in it.
Steve Roberts and Chris Poole combined on 13 minutes to bring the crowd to its feet. The full-back put up a superbly-weighted cross-kick and the right wing cut in at an angle to wrong-foot the first-up tackler as he gathered the ball and cruised to the posts. Meanwhile, the forward exchanges were starting to get a bit ugly, but the Penarth pack were superior in all respects and took the initiative after 20 minutes; Jason Allen took the throw from an attacking line-out and the Seasiders mauled it over from 20 metres with David Morgan marking the points.
Despite pushing the Aberdare eight off every scrum regardless of put-in, the referee prevented Penarth from delivering the forward momentum they’d earned and there was just one further score, another penalty conversion from Docherty, before half-time at 20-3.
After a slow opening minute, the second half burst abruptly into life as Aaron Ellis ran back a long clearance from half way. His fifty-metre charge looked unstoppable, but the Aberdare found sufficient numbers to halt him at the line, only to see captain Richard Merrett, who truly is unstoppable from 1 metre, claim the try.
Ellis went on to collect a yellow card for what looked like a superb tackle to halt a rare Aberdare attack, but he was soon joined by flanker S.Chapell who foolishly assaulted a Penarth player on the ground right under the referee’s nose. The bonus-point try finally arrived on the hour as Geraint Blake dived in low to convert insistent pressure from the Seasiders’ pack and since 35-3 was scant reward for their overall dominance, Penarth never stopped looking for more.
The final try was an interesting combination of luck and judgement as Ellis picked up from the base of a scrum on half-way and fed a short pass to Owain George. The scrum-half ran up the narrow side and chipped over the advancing tackler before putting the opposing left wing under pressure as he sought to clear. The resulting sliced kick was fielded back on half-way by Gary Power, who fed Liam Bevan. The inside centre needed no second invitation and made a bee-line for the posts and his fourth try of the season.
The draw for the Swalec Plate competition has thrown up a bizarre pairing as Div 3 (SE) leaders St.Peters, now only a single point ahead of the Seasiders, are the visitors next Saturday before head west for a potential banana-skin encounter with on-form Heol-y-Cyw just before Christmas. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that only Tylorstown can now match Penarth’s own form after a seven-match unbeaten league run.
Penarth Steve Roberts, Chris Poole, Rhys Lakin, Liam Bevan, James Crothers, James Docherty, Richard Merrett (C), Gary Power (Bryn Adams), David Morgan (Carwyn Griffiths), Jason Allen (James Roach), Darrol Howden, Marc Devine (Elliott Smith), Aaron Ellis, Geraint Blake.
OTHER RESULTS:
FAIRWATER 7-0 LLANISHEN
PENTYRCH 13-8 LLANDAFF
ST.PETERS 8-0 BRECON
TREHERBERT 0-26 HEOL-Y-CYW
TYLORSTOWN 13-10 LLANDAFF NORTH
"THE FINAL WHISTLE"
A post-match assessment by Coach - Mike Clare
Would it sound ungrateful to say there is more to come??
Before the game against Aberdare we all would have taken a 1 point win and I can assure everyone that a bonus point wasn’t even in our consideration.
In doing our customary research we had seen that Aberdare had played the week before and had run Mountain Ash (Division 2) very close, this combined with their current league standings and remembering the dangerous high tempo brand of rugby they played last year meant we were all prepared for a mammoth tussle.
We knew we had been able to assemble a strong squad for this game, with possibly the biggest pack of forwards to grace the Athletic Field in quite some years, but all of the momentum we had built prior to the autumn internationals had been very difficult to maintain following 3 weeks of inactivity.
Alas, the coaches fears were unfounded and the players quite clearly had the confidence and ability to overcome any rustiness.
With a 42-3 win against the third place side in the league you would expect the coaches and players to be overjoyed, and they were with the win and the bonus point and even more so with the nil try count against them, but if we have ambition as a group we have to always look at the performance. The ambition clearly is there, as most of the performance comments have come from the players themselves. They know they were still half a yard off where they would expect to be and some of the handling effected our fluency at times. They want to perfect each aspect of our game and are showing that they are prepared to put in the hard yards to get there.
Case in point: Comment from prop and captain Richard Merrett after tearing apart the Aberdare scrum: We’re not happy with our timing on our hit and our togetherness in the drive. We could’ve done more, completely dominated them!!
Richard is really developing as a captain and his leadership, together with his senior players was a huge factor in Saturday’s performance.
A special mention for young Chris Poole who had an excellent game on the wing, capping the performance with a try, looking dangerous all day and combining well with Steve Roberts.