Fixture

Senghenydd Vs Dowlais 19/10/2024 Match Report

Score:

Senghenydd: 25

Dowlais: 17

A close and frustrating defeat for Dowlais this week, away against Senghenydd.

As the first whistle sounded, Dowlais swiftly found themselves on the defensive against Senghenydd’s attacking efforts, a trend which would continue for the first ten or so minutes of the match.

But despite being under varying degrees of pressure for most of that time, and despite having very little success breaking out of their own half, Dowlais managed to hold their ground quite well, managing to survive the prolonged assault without conceding a try.

While they would give away a penalty at around the ten minute mark, which the home side would soon kick, earning the first points of the match and bringing the score to 3-0, things still seemed to be under control for Dowlais.

This idea would be proven true following the subsequent kick-off, when Dowlais would slowly but steadily begin inching more and more into Senghenydd’s half.

Consequently, the next stage of the match would be much more of a back and forth than its opening ten minutes, with both sides having a good number of goes at securing the first try and really taking control of the game.

At this stage, Dowlais managed to play both sides of the match quite well, continuing to valiantly defend their try-line when the ball was in Senghenydd’s hands – just as they’d done in the first ten minutes – while also beginning to show some promise on the attacking front, with each of their ventures into the home side’s half seeming to get further and further than the last.

This back-and-forth would continue and steadily escalate over the course of the next twenty-or-so minutes, until the half’s remaining time began to close in on the single digits.

At this point, after a number of foiled attempts that didn’t quite make it there, Dowlais would finally arrive at Senghenydd’s twenty-two, keen and eager to take the first try of the game.

And surely enough, after a few phases of charging and rucking by the forwards, the boys would manage to do it, breaking through and driving over the line for the first try of the match, touched down by Jonathan Sutton.

The try was a well-deserved, well-executed culmination of their efforts over the course of the half, and although it would go unconverted, Dowlais had nonetheless managed to take the lead, with the score now sitting at 5-3.

Even though their newly-earned lead was a rather slim one, hopes were high that this would mark the moment that Dowlais took control of the game. After all, they’d managed to score a try the very first time that they’d entered their opponents’ twenty-two. By all accounts, it seemed as though they’d be able to extend their lead relatively easily.

But unfortunately, Dowlais wouldn’t be able to make it over Senghenydd’s try-line again quite yet, and wouldn’t get any more points on the board for the rest of the half, as the match mostly returned to the same back-and-forth as before.

But even more unfortunately, this lack of tries wouldn’t mean that Dowlais would carry their lead into the second half.

As the clock strayed towards forty minutes, Dowlais would concede another penalty. Although it seemed likely that this would mark the end of their lead, and just barely give Senghenydd the edge going into the second half, thankfully, the kick missed.

But any relief anyone may have felt at this stroke of luck was swiftly erased when just a few phases later, Dowlais would concede yet another penalty.

The good fortune that had saved their lead once wouldn’t come to their aid again, and this time, the kick would go through, bringing the score to 6-5, and giving Senghenydd the lead once again in the dying minutes of the half, where the score would eventually stay until half-time.

Now, on paper, Dowlais’ current situation may not seem that bad, which is how many seemed to feel at the time.

While it was unfortunate that they were behind once again, the lead that they had to chase was so meagre that it hardly seemed worth worrying about. Couple that with the relative ease with which Dowlais had managed to score their first try, and it only seemed like a matter of time before the visitors would take control of the match once again.

But in the end, the final minutes of this half, and the manner with which Dowlais lost their lead would prove to be a dark omen of what the rest of the match had in store for them.

Because unfortunately, following Senghenydd’s second penalty towards the end of the first half, Dowlais wouldn’t take the lead again for the rest of the match.

The cause behind this, and the thing that would ultimately lose Dowlais the game would rear its head quite early on in the second half when, just a few minutes after kick-off, Dowlais would concede yet another penalty, which the home side would soon kick, bringing the score to 9-5 and extending their lead without them having to do much of anything.

While Dowlais would continue to make attempts at making it to Senghenydd’s try-line, they would all come up short, due in part to yet more penalties.

These penalties would eventually culminate in yet another kick for Senghenydd just after the ten-minute mark, bringing the score to 12-5, and steadily pushing the home side’s lead further and further away.

And things would only get worse from there. While Dowlais had done an excellent job defending up until that point, a prolonged assault from the home side – once again worsened by more reckless penalties – would eventually culminate in Senghenydd finally making it over as the game entered its final quarter, taking their first try of the match.

After a swift conversion, this would bring the score to 19-5.

After twenty minutes of silly mistakes and reckless penalties from Dowlais, Senghenydd’s mere single point lead had grown and evolved into something that was truly beginning to seem out of reach.

But to the boys’ credit, they definitely didn’t give in.

Perhaps spurred on by the quite daunting score gap that they now had to overcome, Dowlais charged back into the home side’s twenty-two with renewed vigour.

After a lengthy campaign and a string of phases with a refreshingly small penalty count, as the game entered its final fifteen minutes, they finally managed to break through once again, with a try touched down by Joel Braddock.

Although this try would also go unconverted, still leaving Dowlais with nine more points between them and taking the lead, with their spirits now running high and mighty, it finally seemed as though they’d have the momentum that they needed to regain control of the match.

But sadly, even after this success, and after going a decent spell without any egregious penalties, mere minutes after scoring their second try, and before they could put any more points on the board, Dowlais would unbelievably concede another penalty, and another three points to Senghenydd, pushing the score just a little bit further away to 22-10.

But yet again, Dowlais wouldn’t concede and would charge straight back into the home side’s half, even more motivated and fiery than ever to close the newly-widened score gap.

And yet again, just five minutes later, with less than ten minutes left on the clock, they’d manage to break through for another excellent try, this one touched down by James Churchill and converted by Conor Murphy.

With the score now sitting at 22-17, and with Senghenydd’s lead having been cut back down to just five points, even though time was running out, it seemed as though maybe, just maybe, with one more try, and a bit of spirit, Dowlais would barely be able to snatch away a victory.

But agonisingly, just like clockwork, only a few phases later, Dowlais would concede one last penalty kick, which Senghenydd would take advantage of one last time to push the score to 25-17.

Although taking the lead and winning the match now seemed unlikely with the slim amount of time that they had left, Dowlais nonetheless continued gunning for that fourth try, which would at least manage to net them two bonus points if they got it in the time that they had left.

But despite Senghenydd being struck with a yellow card in the dying minutes of the match, and despite a couple of painfully close attempts, in the end, Dowlais would come up short, leaving the match off at its final score of 25-17, a victory to the home side.

Overall, for reasons that I’m sure are quite obvious by this point, this was a very frustrating defeat to watch, mainly because of the amount of good that the boys put into this performance.

In many ways, Dowlais dominated this match both offensively and defensively. They scored three excellent tries over the course of the match, and demonstrated a great deal of character and grit to continue fighting as fiercely as they did to the very end, and defended incredibly well throughout most of the game, merely conceding a single try after a gruelling, prolonged assault.

When looking at these numbers on their own, three tries scored and only one conceded, this seems like – and in many ways, was – a great performance, one that greatly deserved to be a victory.

But despite those numbers, and despite the boys’ admirable efforts, in the end, they didn’t win, and didn’t even get a single bonus point to show for their efforts.

Despite scoring two more tries than their opponents, Dowlais still ended up losing by a rather sizeable eight points in the end.

And all because of one issue that’s come back to haunt the boys again and again, and almost singlehandedly lost them plenty of matches over the years.

Penalties.

Dowlais conceded eighteen points’ worth of penalties this week, more points from penalties alone than they scored from three whole tries.

It wouldn’t at all be an exaggeration to say that penalties lost Dowlais the game this week. They took away their short-lived lead towards the end of the first half, they continued to push Senghenydd’s lead further and further away during the second half, they invalidated all of the hard work that they put into their tries and made it so that Senghenydd barely had to score any of their own.

As previously stated, Dowlais have lost a number of matches because of excessively high penalty counts in the past, but this week’s case – scoring three tries to the opposition’s one, and still managing to lose – might just be one of the most egregious and deflating cases that I’ve seen in a long time.

Seeing the boys put so much hard work and spirit into a match like this, and subsequently seeing them walk away with nothing to show for their efforts really is quite sad to see, and perhaps before anything else, they’d be wise to finally resolve this issue, and finally stop losing games because of it as soon as possible.

Let’s hope for a more favourable result next week, when Dowlais play Nelson at home.