Penrith Panthers shared a points feast with unbeaten League leaders Horden and Peterlee Valkyries at Winters Park.
It was a thrilling contest despite the Panthers sitting bottom of the League table and the visitors only triumphed 41-35.
Despite the defeat the game showed that Penrith are much better than their League position would indicate. The game opened in dramatic fashion with two quick tries in the first five minutes.
The Valkyries were first to score, breaking through down the wing.
From the restart Polly Bowman won a penalty at a breakdown, and taking it quickly ran through the defence to score under the posts. Helena Scullion added the conversion.
The game was pretty even with both teams sharing possession but the Valkyries were next to score when they managed to break through the middle and touchdown.
The Panthers were next on the score sheet after Josie Scrimgour made a break down the wing and was brought down five metres short.
Possession was lost but as the Valkyries attempted to clear their lines Scullion put their fly-half under a lot of pressure in the in-goal area.
Scullion then ripped the ball in the tackle and dotted it down to score, and then added her own conversion to put the hosts 14-12 to the good.
Valkyries wasted no time in replying after they won a line-out ten metres out and ran a well-practised move to go down the blindside and score.
Five minutes later Penrith were back in front. From a midfield scrum they worked the ball wide where Scrimgour used her pace to run round the defence and score under the posts, Scullion added the conversion for a 21-17 advantage at half-time.
The second half started with the Valkyries dominating the possession and the Panthers had to defend well. But after withstanding ten minutes of pressure they buckled and the visitors powered their way over.
It was a telling period for the Panthers as the Valkyries scored two more tries to build a lead of 36-21.
The Panthers weren’t done, however, and they were the next to score with a proper team try.
The forwards were in possession through Jenny Brown who off-loaded out of a tackle to Di Gibson. She moved it to Katie Jackson who drew a defender and passed to Julia Addison.
In turn she quickly passed it on to Scrimgour who fed it to Bowman. She took the tackle and managed to off-load to Scrimgour who had made a looping run and used her pace to score under the posts. Scullion added the conversion to close the gap to eight points.
Unfortunately the Valkyries quickly replied with their final score of the afternoon. The Panthers were then awarded a scrum on the right-hand touch line. It wasn’t clean ball but Scullion gathered it moved on to fly-half Addison.
She saw half a gap, went for it and from the tackle did a one-handed offload to Meg Phillips-Craig who was able to send Scrimgour in for her hat trick.
Scullion added the conversion to give her perfect kicking stats of five from five before the final whistle.
It was a great game to watch with both sides playing some really good rugby and, more importantly, it was played in a great spirit. There were a lot of positives for the Panthers to take from the game and some great performances.
Forward of the match was awarded jointly to Polly Bowman and Jackie Thompson. Bowman was once again a real force up front in the forwards both in attack and in defence and Thompson had her best game yet carrying hard and making tackles.
For back of the match, it was a tough call with three of them sharing the spoils. Josie Scrimgour was back to her best scoring a hat trick and being a constant threat in attack. Helena Scullion had a complete game solid in defence and in attack she moved the ball when needed to and cleaned up a lot of loose balls.
Julia Addison had her best defensive game yet, putting in a lot of low tackles and leading the line well.
