Penrith were under no illusions of the difficulty of the task in hand when they travelled to Rossendale. The home side are a big, strong, aggressive outfit who would pose plenty of problems under normal circumstances but to face them with two of your most experienced forwards missing and a young hooker making his debut would give any side a mountain to climb. If you were to pick a fixture to blood a youngster in the front row this is the last one you would chose.
The loss of last year's player of the year James Thornton at hooker with a broken leg was always going to prove problematic and so it proved, that is not to say anything derogatory about young Tom Mooney who stepped into his boots, he did all you could ask of someone thrown in at the deep end, he did his best, got stuck in and didn't hide but his lack of size and inexperience could not be hidden. As a result the Penrith lineout and scrum were disrupted all afternoon and the home side had the lion's share of possession and the Cumbrians spent most of their day tackling and trying to stem the tide of wave after wave of the home side's driving play.
Penrith lived on scraps of possession and their backs were always lively, Mike Hawley and Gavin Cartmel both made inroads and when Cartmel was tackled high after a searing break Steve Wood was able to give them a three point lead with a penalty. Rossendale had so much possession they were bound to cause problems, initially they tried to use their hard running threes to gain the upper hand and although they ran the ball with purpose there was little subtlety and the visitor's tackling was up to the task, David Barton in particular was immense but everyone played their part.
When Plan A failed the home side turned to their forwards, although they are a very blunt instrument and not pleasing on the eye they were eventually very effective. As the first half wore on Penrith managed to hold firm with determined defence, Ryan Johnson was to the fore with hit after big hit. The home side went close when they had a try disallowed because of a double movement but the inevitable happened just before half time, they had drive after drive and ruck after ruck on the Penrith line and the tacklers finally ran out and the home team bulldozed over from close range.
The successful conversion gave Rossendale a 7-3 half time advantage and Penrith turned down to play up the slope. Their only hope was to cling grimly on and hope the backs could produce a bit of magic to steal the game. If they thought they didn't have much ball in the first period they had even less in the second, they hardly won a scrum as the home pack wheeled everyone and won the put in. Penrith fought for all they were worth but they faced an impossible task.
The home side were to score three more tries, the next was a push over try from a 5m scrum followed by a back row break of another 5m scrum. It was to the visitor's credit despite all their possession Rossendale could not break them down other than to grind scores out through their big forwards and superior muscle up front. Their final try was from rather further out but came from a forward break from a maul.
Penrith's efforts were rewarded late on as they continued to attempted to run what little possession they got, a strong run by Johnson and a Wood miss pass gave Joe Nattrass a chance on the right wing and his line of running was too good for the home defence and he went in under the posts, Wood's kick gave the score an air of respectability for what had been a reaguard action and a matter of making the best of a bad job.