Fixture

Dowlais VS Penallta 25/03/2023 Match Report

Score:

Dowlais: 11

Penallta: 15

A narrow defeat for Dowlais this week with a 15-11 defeat at home against Penallta.

For a relatively low-scoring game, it should come as no surprise that the first half didn’t see many strikes on the score board, in fact, the score remained at 0-0 flat for about half of its duration.

Possession was passed back and forth and play moved from half to half throughout this period, but none of the early attempts on either team’s try lines came to anything, not even after Penallta battered the home side with an extended pressured assault.

Even though Dowlais spent much of the early stages of the game on the back foot, for the longest time, it still looked like the first points of the game could go either way. While Dowlais had a few good attempts, the first successful strike would eventually go to Penallta, with one of their try efforts breaking through for the first points of the game.

But even with that, Dowlais were only one try down, an unconverted try at that, so things were far from dire yet. Staying strong, the boys continued their assault. While some attempts fell to fumbles with passing or ball handling, some to the ball being ripped away and others to the long-standing scourge of penalties, eventually, they broke through.

From Dowlais’ own half, a run from Evan Thomas came exploding down the left wing and into Penallta’s half, and then into their twenty-two. After having carried the ball valiantly across at least half of the field, Thomas passed the ball on over to Nathan Pritchard, who touched the ball down, securing Dowlais an excellent try.

Although their try would too be unconverted, both sides were now neck and neck once more and it was back to being anyone’s game. But despite there being a decent chunk of the half still remaining, no more advancements would be made on the scoreboard by either side for the rest of the half, with both sides’ efforts reverting to the close-but-not-quite back and forth from the beginning of the match.

This rather uneventful stretch of play ended the half off at 5-5.

Both teams returned for the second half full of vigour to shoot ahead of the opposition and bring an end to the evenly matched score. Although it wouldn’t be a massive one, Dowlais would be the first to establish a lead in the second half, with an early penalty kicked by Connor Murphy creating the slightest of score gaps and an 8-3 lead.

But any of Dowlais’ efforts to shoot ahead and widen this gap soon met a bit of a snag, firstly with a couple of ill-fated assaults on the Penallta twenty-two, and secondly with a yellow card, cutting their numbers down to fourteen.

From there, although it didn’t happen right away, the weakened Dowlais defensive line eventually fell to another try from the visitors, this one unfortunately converted, giving Penallta a 12-8 lead.

But with the clock on Dowlais’ yellow card running out shortly after and the side rising back up to fifteen men with much of the game still to go, closing a four-point score gap was hardly an impossible task, so hopes still remained high for the home side to pull through.

Unfortunately, Dowlais’ efforts over the course of the rest of the half would end up with little to show on the score board. For the same reasons as earlier in the match, handling and passing errors, losing the ball or just plain old penalties, the Penallta try line and the keys to close the score gap eluded them.

This looked like it could possibly change when a penalty for Dowlais gave them the chance to kick for the corner and go for a close lineout to eventually drive the ball over the line, an approach that had worked for them time and time again in the past.

But in a confusing move, Dowlais instead opted to kick for the posts. While Connor Murphy would manage to strike the ball between them, the three points they got from doing so still left them a point down with not a whole lot of time to go.

If Dowlais’ plan had been to claw their way back to the Penallta twenty-two to push their score ahead at the last minute with a drop-goal, it didn’t work out, as the home side found themselves unable to get close enough.

In fact, the exact opposite ended up happening, with Penallta managing to get three more points of their own from a penalty, pushing the score up to its final count of 15-11 and taking Dowlais out of range to finish the game in that way.

Although Dowlais threw a few final assaults at the Penallta try line, they came up fruitless in the end, with a final kick to touch from Penallta bringing the game to an end with a painfully close 15-11 win to Penallta.

Despite the unfortunate final result, the game as a whole was actually a lot closer than most of Dowlais’ previous ill-fated bouts with Penallta, so that’s certainly something to be proud of, along with an excellent first half try and a solid defensive effort throughout most of the game.

But in some ways, that closeness only makes the resulting loss even more painful, especially considering the things that ultimately cost Dowlais the win. While there were a few mistakes with passing and ball handling here and there, one of the greatest problems was once again the abundance of conceded penalties, and all of the points that they cost Dowlais and ultimately gave to Penallta, included their final kick.

Additionally, the choice to kick for the posts in that decisive moment for an ultimately pointless three points instead of having another go at the try line with the kick to the corner stands out as quite a perplexing moment.

But be that as it may, Dowlais did manage to pull out a bonus point from their performance, so they at least didn’t leave this week empty-handed.

We’ll just have to see how things go next week as Dowlais head on away to face Risca.