Aspatria came into this cup semi final on the back of a moral boosting win against second placed Eccles whereas Penrith entered the game following a dismal run of form and a particularly bad performance at Hartlepool only a few days before. Penrith’s poor run was to continue as they were deservedly dumped out of the competition they have won for the last four years by a resolute home side.
Penrith started the game determined to play at a pace the West Cumbrians couldn’t live with, although the pace was high the quality wasn’t, they dropped too much ball, threw too many forward passes, gave away too many penalties and took too many wrong options to expect to win a game of rugby.
Initially Aspatria were just hanging on but Penrith, although playing at pace made too many mistakes to build any real pressure and put the home line under any real threat. They would play some nice rugby, string a few phases together and they make an unforced error allowing the home home side to reset their defence and get their wind back.
Aspatria had not been in Penrith territory in the first quarter then a Penrith discretion allowed them to kick a penalty to the corner to force an attacking lineout. This was their first scoring chance and they did not waste it, after several forward drives they crashed over from close range.
Penrith were then rather fortunate to come straight back, Mike Hawley chased back to gather a kick over his head and then launched a siege gun cross field kick. Ben Littleton was in hot pursuit, a kind bounce saw the ball come straight back to him and his pace did the rest from 40m out. Penrith trailed by two points as their try was not converted and then took the lead which was only to last for three minutes with a Steve Wood penalty head on to the posts.
The home side then won turnover ball on the halfway line and moved the ball nicely from left to right to score a well taken try but from a Penrith point of view it was far too easy for them.
Penrith started the second half more positively and did manage to mount a sustain period of pressure on the home line, Kris Bratton went close to scoring and Ian McDowell was held up over the line before they finally fashioned a try and Hawley found space wide on the left to score. Wood’s conversion put their noses in front.
Again the lead was fleeting, they gave a penalty away head on to the posts within two minutes and were again chasing the game.
Penrith then gave away a string of penalties which just encouraged the home side, they were able to kick for position, kick for goal and when the fourth penalty went over there was two scores(26-15) in it with ten minutes to go. Penrith did get a third try at the death when Ed Swale threw a dummy and went at a 5m scrum and managed to wriggle over but couldn’t dig deep enough to force another score to save the game. They had to accept their dominance, over recent years in the county cup was over and would have to look to gain some sort of self respect from the remaining four league games.