Penrith were faced with well in excess of 30 unavailabilities last week in the build-up to their game in Middlesbrough so it was perhaps no surprise they lost 58-15.
There were myriad reasons for the absences, ranging from hospitalisation and injury to, no doubt, Christmas shopping.
Coaches David Preston and Ed Swale were faced with terrible problems piecing a side together and the second team had no chance of raising a side with so many out of contention.
That is not to say those on the coach to Middlesbrough gave anything other than their utmost, as they did.
Senior props Jack Gaskell and Adam Howe led heroically from the front. Both Jack Tunnicliffe and Matt Austwick, more junior members of the first team pack, couldn’t have done more and really put themselves about and young scrum-half Ashton Hook had probably his best game for the side.
There were 11 players under 21 and they all put a real shift in.
They could have done without conceding any points early on to get into the game, and get a feel for it, but unfortunately conceded an early silly penalty which allowed the home side to kick to the corner for an attacking line-out.
The home forwards were much bigger and clearly much more experienced than the Cumbrian youngsters and worked the catch and drive from the line-out for the first score.
Penrith conceded a second well worked try from a scrum on their 22 and then had a sustained period of pressure deep in the Middlesbrough 22.
Gaskell and Howe went close to getting over the line and Sonny Askins was just inches short but they couldn’t quite get over and finally lost possession of the ball.
The hosts continued to dominate after that in the first half and added another three tries.
Fraser Nicolson did manage three points for the visitors from a penalty so at least they didn’t finish the half completely empty handed.
The second half started much better for the young Penrith side. The home forwards had continually offended at the breakdown in the first half and the referee finally saw fit to yellow card one of them.
Hook ran the ball from the ensuing penalty well in the home 22 and fed the ball back inside to Howe on the angle who crashed over.
Five minutes later Penrith were on the attack again and kicked a penalty to the home 22 following a penalty for a high tackle.
The visitors’ line outs had worked well with hooker Josh King finding his jumpers, Morgan Bland and Austwick effectively.
This line out was no different and they set up the maul and drove for the line. The maul went to ground, but after a couple of initial drives Gaskell got his hands on the ball and forced his way over for a second try.
At 35-15 Penrith were back in the game and it was a measure of the threat they were posing that the home side kicked their next two penalties rather than go for the corner and the line-out to extend their lead.
Those two penalties pulled the lead out to 41-15 and that would probably been a pretty fair score but as the game went into the final 10 minutes the toll of holding up a much larger side began to tell and the Penrith lads tired.
They conceded a further three tries in the dying minutes which led to a score that didn’t reflect their efforts but they could hold their heads up and had nothing to be ashamed of after giving their all.
