Penrith travelled south to Liverpool hoping to improve their situation
in the lower reaches of the league table but had a very poor day at the
office.
To say they started badly was some thing of an understatement as they
found themselves two tries and 14-0 down after only seven minutes, in
between the hosts missed a very kickable penalty and before ten minutes
had been played dropped a couple of scoring passes that would have
buried the Cumbrian side completely.
After this abysmal opening Penrith did shake themselves into some sort
of life and started to compete and when they did they were a match for
their hosts and were able to put together some attacks of their own,
when they were able to retain possession for any length of time they
looked the better side but they made too many mistakes to build any
lasting pressure. Never can so many balls have gone to ground in an
afternoon, mostly from Penrith, although it was a cool winter afternoon
conditions were not that poor that players of this level should make so
many errors, it just seemed to be one of those days.
Penrith's improved play did earn them a penalty shot and Steve Wood
took the chance to drag them back into contention. Waterloo replied
with a penalty to restore their lead but as half time approached
Penrith looked as if they were going to make a real go of it. For a
period they dominated play and looked as if they were going to make
their hosts pay for missing their chances. After building an attack
through the phases Mike Raine broke through the middle and fed what was
a scoring pass back inside only to see it go to ground. As the half
ended Penrith were camped on the home line, they had two 5m scrums and
although they battered the line and were within inches of scoring they
couldn't quite breach a stubborn defence.
The second half was a pretty sterile affair, both sides had good
periods but both sides made too many mistakes to get properly on top.
Penrith could not put together enough decent play to haul themselves
back into the reckoning and Waterloo were more than happy just to play
the game out and take the win they had effectively secured in the
opening minutes. The only moment of note was the final play of the game
as Penrith threw caution to the wind in an attempt to score a converted
try which would at least earn them a losing bonus point, it was not to
be as they tried to run it out of their own 22 and the ball bounced
invitingly into the home backs hands for a simple try.
The final try was of little importance but it did flatter the home
side. For over 70 minutes Penrith played out a 3-3 draw and you have to
ask the question if they could play for that long without conceding why
did they ship so many chances in the first minutes. They have over
Christmas to ponder and on the 7th January host West Hartlepool for the
first of a long string of must win matches.