Penrith’s second team had lost at Carlisle 54-17 on the first Saturday of the season when the club was in the midst of a serious injury crisis.
They hosted them under the Winters Park lights for the return and with a stronger line-up gave the city’s first team side a real run for their money.
They did that in spades just losing out 17-14 on the last play of the game as Carlisle took the points by winning ugly.
The home side made a lively start with some incisive running by Tom Kirk and Dylan Cowperthwaite but it soon became apparent what their Achilles heel was going to be as they were struggling badly at both the set scrum and the line-out.
They were also conceding too many penalties and that led to the visitors taking an early lead, a penalty kicked to the corner followed by steady lineout ball gave them the platform for the opening try.
Tyler Callaghan put the five points on the board for Carlisle as he dived round the blind side from the line out after eight minutes.
Penrith then got back into the game with a piece of individuality, after the city side won a line-out on half way.
The service was that slow the ever alert Aaron Cavaghan intercepted the pass from the scrum half to stand off and showed real pace to leave the defence for dead and break away for a converted try.
As the first-half drew to a close the visitors’ dominance of the set piece put the home defence under serious pressure. They defended three five metre scrums in succession and despite being trundled backwards managed to hold out with the only problem being a yellow card.
Carlisle managed to get their line out functioning a bit better in the second half and utilised the driving maul to gain field position but were unable to convert that into points.
Penrith often looked dangerous on the break with some significant pace in the back line available to them.
By the halfway mark in the second half it was clear that the pace of the game on the artificial surface was beginning to tell with a number of players beginning to cramp up.
Further penalty infringements from Penrith, resulting in another player to the bin, gave Carlisle the opportunity for a scrum just 10 metres out in front of the posts.
Number eight Lloyd Clark made a dart from the back down the blind side, feeding the ball to Vinny Lung who was brought down short of the line.
With the forwards arriving in numbers, a couple of pick and go’s and flanker Rory Parish was driven over for Carlisle’s second try, converted by Robbie James for a 12-7 lead with 65 minutes on the clock.
This just inspired the Penrith side to up their game and they came straight back.
A strong run by Robbie Phillipson got them deep into the 22 and the city side were penalised as the home side flung themselves into contact.
Big Will Morgan had the ball from the quickly taken tap penalty and was not going to be stopped from five yards. Angus Dixon added his second conversion and the home side led by two.
By now though the pace of the game was beginning to tell on the home side with a number of Penrith players going down with cramp and having to be replaced.
Carlisle scented that there was a try left to score here, and continuous pressure on the Penrith side had them defending deep within their 22m.
Parish was unlucky not to score again from a pick and go, as he was held up over the line with just a few minutes left on the clock.
The restart from the try line gave Penrith little respite as Carlisle drove the ball down the right setting up a ruck on the 22m line.
Carlisle then swung the ball left and winger Jonny Park was just prevented from scoring in the left corner. From the resulting ruck ball, Carlisle drove towards the line through a series of pick and go’s, just prevented from scoring as play stopped for a concussion to a Penrith player.
It was however only inevitable that from the resulting scrum to Carlisle five metres out, that Carlisle would score from their dominant scrum set piece, with number eight Clark dotting down with the clock running dead.
It was a heart-breaking end to a really valiant effort by Penrith but they could take plenty of positives from the game and the effort and endeavour were there for all to see.
The Carlisle view afterwards was that Penrith were probably the best prepared side they have faced this season.
