Penrith’s form continued to improve as they put away mid table Waterloo with the minimum of fuss once they had got the first twenty minutes out of their system. The players had talked about the visitor’s reputation for starting the game quickly in the prematch build up but failed to do anything about it once the game started.
After six minutes they found themselves ten points down, first conceding a penalty in their own 22 when they lost turnover possession and then having a kick charged down behind their own line which resulted in a converted try. From that point on they gradually improved but didn’t start to get a grip of the game until towards the end of the first half.
Their cause wasn’t helped when they down to 14 men for ten minutes when Craig Rumney was yellow carded after quarter of an hour and at this stage they were clearly a poor second to Waterloo. They stuck to their task and looked more dangerous as time went on, they opened their account after a quickly taken penalty on half way created space and Kris Bratton looked as if he might get in down the left. The cover defence got to him but they had strayed offside in midfield and Steve Wood stroked the penalty over to reel in the deficit.
Wood had a second penalty chance drift just wide and with two minutes to go to half time Penrith were in the ascendancy, good hands and clever interplay by Ian McDowell, Mike Hawley and Gary Hodgson down the right got in behind the Waterloo defence. The ball was fed back inside to Ben Littleton who looked to stumble but once he got into his stride he had far too much pace for a stretched defence and scored close to the posts, Wood’s conversion levelled the scores.
Penrith pressed again and the visitors cleared their lines, the clearance kick bounced on half way and as Littleton fielded it he looked to be in a tight corner as the chasers bore down on him. He shimmied and wriggled away from them and set up an attack down the left, Bratton beat a couple of tacklers but was hauled down. The support was there on cue and the ball transferred quickly to the right where sleight of hand from Penrith’s biggest player, Ryan Johnson, unselfishly released winger Jon Fell who squeezed in at the corner. Wood’s conversion from wide out gave Penrith a half time lead of 17-10 after looking like basket cases for the first 20 minutes.
Wood struck a 35m penalty to increase the lead just into the second period and then Waterloo staged a fight back to try to save the game, at this point both Mike Stephens and Ryan Johnson put in some enormous hits to stop them in their tracks. The game was then effectively over on the hour, Wood made a clean break on the 10m line, put Littleton away on his inside from the 22, young Ben almost made the line but James Thornton was there first to pick and go and claimed a well deserved try, Wood added the points to put the game out of sight.
If there was any doubt three minutes later Penrith were pressing again and the game was pretty loose, Mike Raine fielded a clearance kick on half way and popped it up to Wood. He immediately showed his vision and chipped the chasers, won the race to the ball which by now was just a yard or so short of the line, chipped it on and touched down for the fourth and bonus point try. This he did under the nose of the England head coach Stuart Lancaster who had paid his entrance money to run his eye over his local club.
Wood, the home captain, again converted and then left the field with a groin strain to complete a good days work on behalf of his side. With quarter of an hour to go the game was over bar the shouting and the only meaningful moment was left to Mike Hawley when he banged a penalty over from the 22 to complete the proceedings.
Penrith have now won five games out of six since the 81 point debacle at Sandal and their confidence can only improve, the side is always capable of scoring tries but now looks more capable of stopping the opposition score as well. This is the first win they have had sealed before the final five minutes and moves them up to fourth in the table. A difficult trip to a physical Rossendale side awaits them next week but with what has gone on in the last six weeks it need hold no fears.