Penrith were delighted to come away from Darlington with a victory in their first outing of the season. It was far from being a complete performance and looked like what it was, the first game of the season with new players needing to get to know each other and the rustiness to
get out of the system. The pleasing thing was any apparent problems will be easily solved with a bit of coaching, some hard work and another game or two under the belt. Perhaps a couple more pre-season games against more testing opposition would have been helpful.
Penrith did start much the better of the two teams and their early endeavour earned them a six point lead from two Steve Wood penalties as they dominated the first twenty minutes. Mowden Park then came back into it and played some nice pressure rugby and earned themselves two shots at goal as well, within a couple of minutes of each other. They
however were only successful with one to trail 6-3. This setback seemed to spur the visitors to greater efforts and when they won a scrum against the head on the home 22 they scored a simple try; the Mowden three quarters were on the back foot expecting to win
the set piece and quick transfer of the ball by Paul Newton, David Barton and Mike Hawley gave Phil Fell a clear run in at the corner which he took with ease, Wood's conversion off the touchline went over, off the post and was to prove vital.
Penrith looked comfortable at the start of the second half but then appeared to rather ease off; it may have been the home side ramping it up but the result was Penrith came under increasing pressure and finally conceded a well earned converted try as the home pack mounted drive after drive deep in the 22 to force the opening. With only a three point cushion the game swung again Penrith's way, with Steve Dixon coming off the bench to steady the set scrimmage, they had the home side penned in on their own line, although the home side had the put in to the scrum on their own 5 metre line, it was wheeled, so Penrith then had the put in. They won the scrum but it was messy at the base, Mike Raine in his first game as captain tidied up at No8 and released Ryan Johnson from blind side wing forward who made inroads in mid field; the ball was quickly spun and Joe Nattrass on the left wing ran an excellent line back inside the last defender to take the tackle and force his way over. This time Wood's touchline conversion came back off the post. Penrith were now two scores ahead at 18-10 and looked to have the game in their pocket.
The game was to take one last twist as with a minute of proper time left Mowden again battered the Penrith line to score a converted try to move within a point, this was the last fright and the visitors saw out the last few minutes even though they lost Wood with a yellow card late on. They were also without David Preston either side of half time as he was yellow carded when three Mowden forwards took him on, so with an away win and a card count of two to nil, no one was complaining. Penrith's two new boys were under scrutiny and David Barton had an excellent game with direct running and unselfish use of the ball, his
work in defence was top rate as he harried the home threes like a terrier. Gary Hodgson was also impressive with ball in hand and made some good breaks and worked hard all afternoon.
This was a pleasing start to the season, there is plenty of work to do and plenty of improvements to make but there is the basis of a very good side here.