Driffield was Penrith's longest away trip of the season and they got on the coach to come home happy in the knowledge of a job well done in difficult circumstances. They had trailed by nine points just before half time before managing to get their noses in front but as the final whistle loomed they were four points adrift but pure dogged determination saw them grab the try with a couple of minutes to go that won them the game.
Preparation for the game had been far from ideal, the coach had begun its journey from Cockermouth with the west coast based players on board only to have an accident occur two vehicles in front of it. There was a car on its roof and trapped passengers which the emergency services took well over an hour to clear so the coach was well over an hour late leaving Penrith and arrived at Driffield less than 20 minutes before the scheduled start.
Although the kick off was grudgingly put back ten minutes it left little or no time for any sort of warm up and the players were straight into the game. They could not be accused of still being on the bus as the game started as they tore into the home side but it was the hosts who were more quickly into their game and within five minutes had taken a three point lead with a penalty under the posts.
Penrith made life difficult for themselves as they would only win 50% of their set piece ball at the scrum and lineouts and were stripped of the ball regularly in contact and the home side had the lion's share of possession so Penrith spent an awful lot of time defending.
In fact this win was based on their dogged defence. Driffield, prior to the game were the only side other than Penrith to have scored over 300 points, they had not been beaten at home and their backs had been scoring tries for fun. They weren't to score any tries here as the aggressive tackling of Mike Stephens, Liam Tunstall, Harlan Corrie and Ryan Johnson kept their forwards at bay and their backs got no change whatsoever out of centres Matt Allinson and Phil Armstrong.
The home runners maybe went a yard or two further in contact than Penrith would have liked but they made no clean line breaks but as the first half progressed with the majority of the ball and field position they added another two penalties for a nine point lead.
As half time approached Penrith started to play a bit of rugby, a nice half break by Allinson allowed him to put Jamie McNaughton away for a good run into the 22. A clean break by Mike Fearon then took play up to the 22 and another to the line, Corrie then appeared to forced his way over but the referee was unsighted and awarded the visitors a 5m scrum. The home pack were penalised at the scrum and Penrith went for a re-scrum, they were penalised again and this time Tunstall tapped and went, he almost made the line and from the ruck Arran Sullivan picked and went and forced his way over by the corner flag.
Penrith trailed 9-5 at the break but started the second half well, Fearon had a long distance shot at goal that landed just short and when McNaughton hit the line off the blind side wing outside Allinson and put Ben Littleton away a try looked in the offing but an excellent cover tackle just got to him.
They continued to turn the screw and another Fearon break released McNaughton who was hauled down on the 22 and the home side were penalised at the breakdown. Fearon slotted the penalty to put his side within a point and added a second to take the lead after good approach play as the Cumbrians went through the phases and caught the home side offside.
Penrith then seemed to go into their shells, they had lost Dan Morgan just before half time with what looked like a snapped achilles tendon and then Ryan Johnson with a head injury and were again ceding possession to the hosts who were right back in the game. They struck another penalty to retake the lead and then a fifth in total to pull the lead out to four points.
Darkness was drawing in as the game went into its final throes and Penrith made one last final effort, orchestrated by George Graham they edged closer and closer to the home line with each phase. Armstrong crashed the ball back into traffic almost to the line and this time when the ball came to the backs there was a bit more space. It looked on out wide but Fearon saw the gap again, ducked back inside, evaded two tacklers before carrying a third one over the line with him for the winning score. He added the conversion but the drama was not over as Penrith made a mess of tidying up the restart.
Penrith were penalised at the ensuing scrum some 5m into their half and the Driffield stand off had a chance to level the scores with the final kick of the game. He had had a good afternoon striking the ball nicely and hadn't missed a kick, this one had the legs but faded right at the end and Littleton fielded the ball, belted into touch much to the relief of the travelling contingent.
It was far from a perfect performance, there plenty of points you could fault but not the spirit and determination, coach David Preston was delighted by the character shown by his side and also the 80 minutes put in by 18 year old prop Adam Howe who belied his youth and played like a man