Penrith had a severe case of their away day blues on Saturday at the start of their game at Northwich, where, after half an hour they found themselves 33-7 down having conceded five tries. The home side played some nice rugby but it is so much easier to go through the phases, run your training ground moves and play "fancy dan" rugby when the opposition are not in you faces. As a fifteen Penrith stood off them and when they finally came to their senses they left themselves with far too much to do.
Northwich were allowed to score their tries far too easily and all Penrith had to show for their efforts in the first 30 minutes was one well worked lineout after a penalty kick to the corner. Dan Richardson, in his first game after an ankle injury, took the lineout ball and set up the driven maul. It made a little progress before going to ground, the ball then came short to Matt Allinson who ran it in hard. Scrum half Ed Swale then ignored the run of Will Morgan and let him draw the defenders before setting up Adam Howe on the charge who barreled over from close range.
As the half drew to a close the Cumbrians began to show something like their true form and started knocking the home players backwards in the tackle rather than letting them make yards once going into contact and being able offload. The home players didn't look as confident in possession and were looking for the tackle and Penrith took advantage when the ball was spilt by the home side on their 22. Jay Rossi and Jonny Wills worked the ball up the right flank and it was then whipped wide left, Nathan Wooff took a long pass and found Jamie McNaughton who made a show of the ball to the winger then went himself, hit the gap and made the line in the corner.
The visitors trailed 33-12 at the break and there was just a sniff of a comeback. They then started the second half the much better of the two, from the restart they put the ball through the phases and took it from their 22 to the home 22 and when Northwich ran the ball the tackles were flying in, they were now up for it.
They scored after just five minutes, Allinson tapped and went when awarded a penalty on his own 22, a quick interchange between McNaughton and Rossi put Wills in the clear just into the home side's half and he had enough pace to outstrip the cover and make the line from 50m out, the conversion from Wooff went over and Penrith were within two scores.
The home side looked as if they had got the jitters, when awarded a penalty on the visitor's 22 they went for goal to extend their lead beyond two scores but missed. They did put the visitors under pressure but they were now up to it and 17 year old Adrigh Cole, a Newton Rigg student making his first league appearance was giving an object lesson in defending. He may have been the smallest man on the pitch but be was bringing much bigger players to ground with text book round the legs tackling. Allinson was leading the field and putting in hits of his own in all over the field. A sizable home prop, who took a crash ball when they ran a penalty, probably wished he hadn't seen it when he was stopped dead in his tracks, Allinson also was winning turnover ball for his side.
Penrith then scored the try of the game and it was Allinson who deservedly came up with the score, they had moved the ball from their own 22, gone through the phases and slowly progressed up the field before camping on the line in the left hand corner. Allinson then applied the finishing touch as he brushed three defenders aside to force his way over in the corner. The conversion off the touchline would have brought the deficit down to just seven points but it was wide.
Allinson was then unlucky to be yellow carded as he stripped the ball carrier one more time but in this instance the referee said it was on the ground but it was a close call, this reduced the visitors to 14 men and robbed them of one of their big tacklers and the home side rallied and took advantage. They scored two late tries to run out deserved winners but if Penrith had started like they played the second half it would have been a completely different matter.
On a positive note they did come home with a four try bonus point and will now have to beat Burnage next week to keep in the top half of a very congested league table