Penrith continued their build up to the new season this week-end with a trip north of the border and a trial game against Dumfries Saints.
They play at a decent level in the third tier of Scottish rugby at National Two and the final 31-31 score-line was a fair result.
Penrith took a 19-man squad and although they had virtually a complete first team backs line-up they were short of experience in the back five of the scrum.
After a series of set-backs with a late change to the kick off time and then a lengthy road closure on the way they finally got the game underway at 12.15 in searing heat and unbroken sunshine.
They couldn’t have had a better start when a flat Mike Fearon pass saw Jamie McNaughton make a clean break.
He made good ground before feeding the ball back inside to George Graham who outpaced the cover to score under the posts.
They weren’t long in adding to their score as this time Graham made the initial break to get in behind the defence and then McNaughton found Darren Lee who had more than enough pace to go in at the corner.
Good play by the home forwards saw them pull a score back but the visitors soon re-established their lead.
A quickly taken penalty on the home 22 caught out the home defence and when prop Lee Chapman found himself in space out wide he quickly fed the ball to Lee who again had the pace to go in at the corner.
The restart kick went directly into touch and from the resulting scrum on the centre spot the ball was quickly transferred to Lee on the right wing who simply outpaced his opposite number on the outside to claim the try and his personal hat trick.
By this point Penrith were leading 26-5 but were suffering with injuries and had three of their senior players off the field for the remainder of the game.
Dan Richardson had twisted his knee in the warm-up; Archie Rattray had a neck injury and Graham had a groin injury.
With these players off the pitch the home side mounted a comeback and after adding a couple of scores only trailed 26-17 at the break.
They scored again just into the second half to come within two points of the visitors but then their comeback stalled as Penrith’s pack dug in.
The only regular first team forwards on the pitch were front row forwards but they were ably supported by the youngsters in the squad.
Dylan Thompson put a real shift in playing the whole game in the heat, while Mark Mason and Connor Coleman did their reputations the world of good.
Penrith looked to have sealed the win when McNaughton danced through to score an impressive solo try but the home side came back with a try and conversion at the death to level the scores at 31 apiece, which was probably a fair result.
