Fixture

Saturday 6^th September 2014

Last Saturday saw the start of the season for Old Penarthians against old rivals Canton in Division 3 Central East (A) of the WRU National Leagues.  For those who follow the fortunes of the Club it may be a surprise that a team who had a disappointing year finishing ninth in Division 5SE should be promoted two divisions but that is exactly what has happened following a reorganisation of the league structure by the WRU.  That reorganisation has been discussed, argued about, but ultimately implemented and the Old Penarthians’ opponents this season represent a return to former local venues.

It will be undoubtedly be a hard year but under the captaincy of Lloyd Davey, entering his second term of office, and new coach Graham Mathews there was a degree of optimism that the last few weeks had shown an enthusiasm and two victories in warm up matches against Whitchurch and Pontllanfriath.

And that good feeling continued after four minutes of the first half against Canton when a series of runs by the forwards led by Joel deClaire and Dai Roberts resulted in a penalty, which was kicked by Jonathan Crimp.

Canton were soon on the attack however and responded with a forward effort of their own that after five or six phases of play in the home team 22 saw a try and conversion to the visitors.  Penarthians had a golden opportunity five minutes later when loose ball won by the forwards was passed quickly by Crimp to centres Tim Naylor and Craig Haines who brought Davey in from full back into space, only for him to hold on to the ball rather than release Alex Lewis to run for the corner.

One chance lost but another came quite quickly and from a scrum five yards from the right touchline Roberts broke to the narrow side before passing to Gareth Clancey.  Clancy cleverly kicked ahead and Roberts caught the ball on the full before feeding back inside to Clancey who scored. Crimp converted and Penarthians led by 10 points to 7.

Unfortunately Canton responded within three minutes when a lose kick into mid field after a stolen lineout saw the Canton fullback return the ball untouched from 50m to score a try that was converted. The next 15 minutes was a close encounter with the line out functioning well through Gareth Boulton, debutant Jack Margetson and James Williams and tight scrumming from Mark Smart, Lee Brennan and Neil Margetson. However all the good work was undone and another wayward kick was gathered by the Canton threequarters who ran through some ineffective tackling to take a 19- 10 lead. Then on the stroke of half time a further converted try was conceded to make the interval score 26 – 10.

Half time saw the introduction of Simon Davies returning to rugby after a season long absence watching Cardiff City, Dean Pratt recently returned from honeymoon and another debutant David Hoskins playing on permit from Barry RFC. All contributed to the team performance but the elusiveness of the Canton threequarters aligned to the directness of their forwards resulted in another three unconverted tries and a penalty, to a solitary Crimp penalty and a final score of 44 -13 to the visitors.

There were however positives from the second half and another fluid threequarter move, which saw Naylor make two contributions, fell just short of the tryline when the ball was spilled forward.  With that style of play there was however encouragement for the team management to take forward into their next fixture which is away to Old Illtydians at their new ground at Moorland Park in Splott.

The seconds also open their account against the same opposition at home in an East District Cup match.  Both games kick off at 2.30pm.