Fixture

WRU LEAGUE DIVISION 1 EAST

Dowlais: 5

Penallta: 59

A harrowing defeat for Dowlais this week, with a brutal 59-5 loss at home against Penallta, as they fail to keep up their recent improvement.

Dowlais failed to look as though they’d pose any threat to Penallta from the start any advances they made in either half were quickly quelled by the Penallta defense or a botched pass, while Penallta relentlessly broke through Dowlais and found themselves often at the tryline, facing Dowlais on their last defensive legs. Any trips from outside the Dowlais twenty-two were non-eventful and often cut short by a lengthy run from Penallta that either put Dowlais back under pressure or another try down.

Many times the Penallta wingers and others simply ran through Dowlais, with ineffective attempts at tackles being shrugged off. Penallta took an early and uncontested lead in the first half, scoring six tries, all but one converted, with many coming from shocking fumbles from Dowlais in either ball handling or passing. Hope for a comeback seemed to fade quickly as two of these tries were scored within two minutes of each other and Dowlais increasingly showed little chance of stepping up their attack.

At the very least the second half saw Dowlais concede only half as many tries as the first (with once again all but one being converted) and spending more time out of their own twenty-two, but until the very last play saw very little to show for their efforts. Issues with tackling and ball handling stuck around as Dowlais failed still to put any noticeable dent in Penallta’s defence, only managing to concede more tries in their attempts to get any points on the score board.

Some respite and compensation came however with a last play try from Dowlais, taking advantage of Penallta’s recent red card and being touched down by Tom Griffin.

If I had to pick out any stand out flaw in this game that dragged Dowlais down more than anything, it would have to be their missed tackles and mostly paper-thin defense. No matter how ineffective their attack, the damage done to morale by their many early conceded tries did the most damage to Dowlais than anything else.

The final score for this game was 59-5 to Penallta, with the winners scoring nine tries, with all but two being converted and Dowlais with only one last minute unconverted try.

Next week, Dowlais play Risca away.