Due to a lack of game time because of the six nations and weather problems Penallta Youth went into an away league game against Newport HSOB with some trepidation and this was proved in their performance in the first half.

In the first ten minutes both sides were evenly tied in terms of possession and territory but, after a long range penalty miss by outside half Dale Jones , Newport launched an quick attack which ended in a try which started a landslide leading to a 32 point to nil lead at half time.  This try fest was partly due to the loss of flanker Blane Rogers , whose tackling until his injury was nothing short of awesome, and also due to players not spending enough time on the training park .

At the interval Coach Brian Corns took off scrum half Aaron Evans and brought on Scott Edwards who immediately injected some much needed urgency into the game.

Unfortunately whilst Penallta started to launch a comeback the home team took advantage of some lax tackling to go ahead by 37 points.

At this point Penallta decided to wake up and, while it was much to late to save the game, started to play the way we know they can.  With fullback Morgan Power taking a high ball on the half way line he started on a strong run linking up with his fellow backs to take the final pass to touch down over the line which was converted by Dale Jones .

This score started a revival which lead to a 15 minute period of pressure ending with another 2 tries - one by flanker Owen Stacey and the other by winger Nathan Mahoney.

During this " purple patch" the visitors kept attacking but were only stopped by some very desperate defence.  However it was too late to make a difference to the result but left the Penallta players to reflect on the fact that if they had started the game the way it ended the result would have been a lot different.

There were some positives to take from this poor display - Andrew Dix had a good game at flanker ,Morgan Power showed that the fullback slot is his best position, Luke Ansell can play prop at the same strong level he plays second row and that Ross Edwards will be missed when he returns to the Army.

At the post match talk both coaches and captain made their feelings known concerning the poor turn out in training which was reflected on the field.  With only a hardcore of 8-10 players turning up for training it is extremely hard to practise moves and whilst 4 players are away at university there are still 5-6 players "not bothering " to train and yet know that due to lack of numbers they will get a game.  This is completely the wrong attitude and we as, coaches hope that this poor result will cause people to realise that good numbers in training will result better performances in games. 

Scorers

Morgan Power

Owen Stacey

Nathan Mahoney

Dale Jones