First visit to Penrith results in success

Despite many attempts, this age group from Mowden have never played Penrith, so with the sun shining and no cancellations we set off for Penrith.

With the hospitality shown and the facilities on offer, let's hope this is the first of many trips.

Unfortunately with Mowden short with injuries and Penrith short with injuries, Penrith needed 3 of our players to make up their team and that was it ... no more subs !!!!

This was probably reflected in the scoreline below as Mowden backs managed to work on their set plays and with Lewis Harper wearing the coaches boots, they seemed to give him wings, and confidence (OK OK .... I need a little bit ..., but credit to Peter for sending down Hodgy and working on making the gaps ... thanks Hodgy).

Despite Penrith starting strongly and working the ball to within 10m of the Mowden line, the ball was turned over and some quick movement (well done Ciaran and JonnyH), saw the ball arriving at LewisH who crashed through two tacklers and then ran the length of the pitch to score in the corner, hotly pursued all the way by 3 Penrith players. Great boots them ...

From the restart Penrith once again put Mowden under pressure with some excellent rucking and mauling, however, counter rucking once again saw Mowden move the ball wide, this time for JamesD and Stefan to hook up well for Stefan to run the length of the pitch, this time with no pursuers he ran under the posts for JonnyH to convert.

Penrith now buckled down to the task and it was a lot longer before Mowden once again burst from Mowdens half with Chris Cran having to do the running this time.

Half time the score was 17 : 0 to Mowden.

Mowden were beginning to work harder around the rucks with Jonny O Neil being particularly vigilant and working hard. A well won ball saw Lewis run the same line to break through two tacklers and run in another try under the posts with CiaranR converting.

Now it was the turn of the forwards. Tom Ducker, RobertL working right and getting good body positions to move the maul forward. When Tom concentrates on doing it right he is a formidable force. Working hard the forwards drove the ball from the half way line, finally for RobertL to break off and score the try. JonnyH converting.

Finally it was the work of LewisH to run in the final try to show everyone how good those boots really were.

Final score 31:0

Mowden backs still had to work hard and the score does not really portray the hard work Penrith put in, with their forwards working really hard to win ball. Penrith backs covered well and their 15 was explosive and tricky going forward and certainly would have scored at least two tries without great covering tackles by Mowden.

A credit to all players for keeping their heads up for the 50 minutes.

The players food afterwards is definitely cause for a return, with all players commenting that bangers, mash and beans was the best grub this season ....

Forward of Match : While the forwards worked hard and defended in their last 10 magnificently (I think it took 20 minutes before the first ruck in the Penrith half), one player was alert and drove with the passion expected of a Mowden forward. Jonathan O Neill took the honours.

Back of the Match : James Downs had a great first run out and certainly looks to be a great asset to the team, tackling and running well. Stefan performed well, but still waits for the ball to come to him. Although Lewis ran in three tries, and had to work hard to get them, this was down to our 9 and 10 playing well. Jonathan's kicking was intelligent and he took control where we expected him to, but really it was Ciaran that lifted his game and gave the performance we know he is capable of that laid the foundation. Excellent ball to Jonny and the forwards, excellent hassling of his opposite number saw Ciaran clinch the award. It is expected to keep all performances at this level Ciao (do you want to borrow my boots ?)