Penrith hosted a York side without a win and managed to get over the line for a 27-25 victory.
The Regional 1 North East clash at Winters Park was the first time the clubs had met.
The hosts may have been hoping for a regulation win despite fielding a much changed back line against their winless visitors.
They got their win but it wasn’t regulation, they had to dig themselves out of a hole, largely of their own making, in the final quarter and got there by the narrowest of margins.
The home pack started well and had good periods of possession in dangerous positions but couldn’t find the opening score.
In fact it was the visitors who struck first running back an aimless clearance kick and scoring a well taken converted try.
The visitors conceded a number of penalties for high tackles and found themselves defending a line-out on their own line after one such penalty was kicked to the corner. The home pack secured the ball but couldn’t drive the maul over the line as it was disrupted by the defenders.
The ball came short to Jack Gaskell who drove it in and laid it back where Jack Tunnicliffe was first on the scene and snapped up the loose ball and had an easier run to the line than he should have had. Nick Dudson hit the conversion to level the scores.
Penrith scored from the re-start after the forwards made some hard yards before Dudson made a clean break and got to the last defender who didn’t tackle him but slowed him just enough for the cover to get to him.
The forwards again took over with Scott Lancaster to the fore before the ball came to the backs.
Captain Arran Pamphilon floated a pass out to full back Ben Littleton who drew the last man and had Joe Kirkup on his shoulder to run in the try.
The visitors hit back with a penalty to narrow the gap but it was Dudson again who this time created and scored the third try.
It’s not very often at this level of the game teams score from first phase but Dudson from a scrum in his own half did just that.
He beat his man on the inside, beat the full back on the outside and had enough pace to go around the covering winger and go over in the corner.
York hit back with a second penalty in front of the posts as the home side were penalised for being offside.
Although the Cumbrians had out-scored their opposition by three tries to one in the first half they only lead 17-13 at the break.
Penrith started the second half on the offensive. They had both an attacking line-out then a five metre scrum but were unable to add to their tally and then the visitors had the upper hand.
They got the ball over the line following a catch and drive from a lineout deep in the home 22 but couldn’t ground it but then quarter of an hour into the second half scored a second try after poor defence in the home midfield.
The successful conversion gave them a three point advantage which they increased to eight after the home side spilled the ball in the centre and the ball was hacked to the line for a third try.
The Yorkshire side now led by two scores and Penrith had to dig deep.
The forwards turned the screw and the visitors began to leak penalties.
Fraser Nicolson had taken over the kicking duties and put in a series of raking touch finders and hooker Lee Chapman was finding Ant Davies with regularity.
Davies was now jumping at the front of the lineout, and this led to the two scores that earned Penrith their win.
They scored their fourth try from a five metre line-out on the left, where steady ball and a concerted drive for the line saw Greg Wrathall come up with the try.
With 10 minutes to go they repeated the trick in the right hand corner, this time Gaskell coming up with the score.
The home side played out the final minutes with few problems as York continued to infringe as they tried to hit back.
They did get deeper into the danger zone late on but Gaskell sealed the win winning turnover ball and setting up steady possession to allow Dudson the time to bang the ball into touch and end the game.
This was not one of Penrith’s better performances but they did knuckle down and grind out the win with some basic rugby just when it was needed.
They will have to up their game if they are to come back from Kendal’s Mint Bridge with anything next time out.
