PENARTH 9 LLANISHEN 14
All good things come to an end and on Saturday league leaders, Penarth, surrendered the run of league victories that they had taken into double figures.
Not only disappointing but unexpected as most pundits had this down as a home banker.
In fact there will have been a substantial scratching of heads amongst the team, the management, the coaching staff and the supporters as to just how this one got away.
We can discount the usual suspect, the referee, although Mr. Jones’ fondness of the lecture and the penalty did little to encourage cohesive play. Was it the distraction of cup competition? After sterling efforts at Rhydyfelin two weeks ago, there was a visit last Wednesday to Llanharan where, in taking on Tondu in the Silver Ball our team emulated the Welsh national side in conceding 26 points to 3 before half time and only leaving enough time to get within 6 points, losing 26-20. Or was it the titanic efforts of last week in disposing of early league leaders and closest challengers St. Peters?
To be fair the visitors were determined and focussed and played with effort throughout and whatever the cause or causes of defeat it has to be said that Penarth just didn’t turn up on Saturday. The home sides’ play lacked cohesion or continuity; possession was not secured regularly and when it was it was wasted by errors in handling and decision making.
The game itself was also a pretty disappointing affair and anyone turning up five minutes late missed all the action. It was on three minutes the Llanishen took advantage of the home side’s slow reactions to put the ball through hands and send centre Thomas over out wide.
From then on the scoreboard moved only for penalties and this single try proved to be the difference in the two sides at the whistle.
Mostly the play itself was characterised by blitz defence and aggressive competition at the breakdown by the visitors. Successfully preventing Penarth from developing any momentum and at no stage did Llanishen surrender their lead.
Hopefully Penarth will have got this one out of their system and not having an unbroken run of success will get that pressure off their backs and they can use the break for internationals to allow this very good side to get straight back to winning ways at Heol-y-Cyw on this coming Friday (12th March).
Finally a very much deserved bright spot. The authoritative magazine “Rugby World” each month selects from the whole ruby spectrum a team worthy of being its’ “Team of the Month”. March’s team is Penarth, in recognition of the fantastic achievements of steadily rebuilding and developing a club that almost, a few years ago, became one of the victims of professionalism in the game. Most of us remember the long succession of failures by teams whose personnel changed weekly and the steady slide down the new divisions in Welsh Rugby that went with this. A few also knew how wrong Penarth’s image as a wealthy club was and how the club was in fact deeply in debt and had serious problems with the Inland Revenue. All this has quietly been put right over recent years and many congratulations to Mike Gooding, his committee and coaches and to all our loyal players and supporters who have been a part of the magnificent re-flowering of this famous club.
Penarth: Chris Roberts; James Crothers; Rhys Lakin; Liam Bevan; Steve Roberts; James Docherty; Gareth Clancy (Owain George); Richard Merrett; Peter Bennett (Gary Power); Carwyn Griffiths; Darryl Howden; James Roach; Marc Devine (Jason Allen); Geraint Blake; Elliot Smith (Aaron Ellis-Munn).