Fixture

Last Saturday Old Penarthians 1^st XV entertained unbeaten Wattstown in a WRU South East Central (B) league fixture and whilst the visitors returned home with a 42-24 victory to retain their hopes for a league title, Old Penarthians can take a lot of credit from a resilient performance in all phases of the match.

In fact, at half time Old Penarthians were worthy of their 17-14 lead but in the second period injuries to front row forwards led to passive scrums which meant that the home team had to withdraw a player and Wattstown exploited the extra space wide out on the wings and went on to score four second half tries.

The match did however start well and after direct running in midfield from Rhys Lakin, Lloyd Clarke (on loan from Penarth) and Louis Chandler an infringement from Wattstown gave Nathan Facey an opportunity for a penalty and Penarthians led 3-0. The lead up to the penalty did however see the departure of Tyler Carter with a shoulder injury to be replaced by Rhys Thomas

Wattstown were soon on the attack and after a quick penalty by the scrum half mobile prop James Stewart exploited the defence and scored for Matthew Lewis to convert.

It was the Penarthians front row of Lee Brennan, Dan Jones and Tom Sidford who were then to the fore when they won a scrum penalty for a dominant shove against the head. The line out after the penalty award was won by James Beaton and an attack was launched in midfield through Chandler and Josh Allcock but the ball was spilled and advantage lost.

Penarthians were well in the game at this time with Tomos Hillman and Jon Crimp dictating the play bringing both the backs and forwards into the attack.  Wattstown were definitely rattled and not having the easy afternoon that they thought they may have.  And it was from an attacking lineout that Lakin carried through the centre for the ball to be recycled quickly for Hillman, Crimp and Facey to link up with Clarke before Chris Poole ran away to score.  Facey converted and Penarthians led 10-7

As so often happens for the Old Pens, good play leads to a mistake and from the kick off the ball was handed back to Wattstown and Stewart again scored from close range for Lewis to convert. The pressure exerted on the visitors then led them to be reduced to 14 men after a cynical trip on Crimp after a deft kick forward. The resulting lineout from the penalty was won by Beaton and after a drive in midfield from Craig Haines and Lakin the recycled ball was back on the blindside from Tillman to Crimp who scored for Facey to convert.  A missed penalty by Facey on the stroke of half time meant that Old Pens led 17-14.

At half time Brennan was replaced by Dan Hobson (on loan from Sully RFC) and Scott Mackie replaced the injured, but otherwise impressive, Beaton.   Before the team had settled the Wattstown outside half Lewis perfectly judged a cross field kick for winger Ben Coles who crossed to score, which Lewis converted.

More bad luck followed with Sidford withdrawn from the front row with an injury and whilst current Youth XV captain James Reynolds earned his 1^st XV debut it was to be in a non-competitive front row with the team penalised by having to continue the match with 14 players.

The additional space on the wing was then exploited on three more occasions and Coles was the beneficiary each time.  Lewis completed an error free afternoon with the boot, kicking all the conversions.

In between there were positive contributions from Penarthians with Clarke prominent throughout ably supported by Hobson and Chandler in the forwards.  Lakin and Crimp combined well and Poole was always a threat when he received the ball.  In fact, after 35 minutes Poole broke defensive tackles to score a fine individual try, converted by Facey.

It was however too late and despite a touchline run by Alex Lewis towards the end of the match it was Wattstown who were the deserved winners in a match played in a fine spirit that even led to a post-match combined team photograph. ‘Proper old-school rugby’

On 9^th April Old Pens travel to Llandaff North for a rearranged league fixture with as scheduled kick off at 2.30pm.