It’s been a tortuous few months for Penrith after a highly promising start to the season, and they reached their lowest point at the weekend.
They travelled to Regional 1 North East leaders Heath and went down to a club record defeat by 115-5, topping the 106-14 defeat suffered at Rossendale two years ago.
Penrith had approached the game in reasonable spirits, although they had lost their previous game it was only by a single point and they had been competitive with an Ilkley side riding high in the league.
They had a similar side out and although they were expecting a difficult afternoon against unbeaten Heath no one was expecting the game to unfold as it did.
The home side blitzed the Cumbrians in the opening minutes and they just had no answers. They conceded three tries and were 21-0 down well before the ten minute mark and the home side just kept on coming.
Often in these situations the pace eases when a side scores their fourth and bonus point try, the games can drift but Heath were full on for the full 80 minutes and just never let up.
Penrith’s cause was not helped by losing full back Isaac Murray early in the game and then Jack Tunnicliffe at half time but it made little difference with the home side relentless in attack and defence.
Eleven tries were scored by the break and with only two conversions being missed the score was up to 73-0. The visitors did rather rally in the second half and the procession of tries rather slowed but it was still almost one way traffic.
With 10 minutes to go it looked as if they might keep the score under a hundred but the home side finished with a flurry and eventually seven tries were conceded in the second period. The visitors did manage to avoid being nilled when Adam Howe grabbed a try in the last play of the game.
Even Penrith’s most ardent supporter could not claim they played well but they never gave up and quite a number of the home supporters complimented them on that.
In these circumstances few players came out of it with much credit but Rob Coward just back from injury had an excellent game, after starting on the wing and then very solid at full back he even had
It is worth mentioning Penrith used their 51st player of the campaign when 19-year-old Josh Swinson came on with just a couple of minutes on the clock and acquitted himself well. It was far from ideal condition to blood a youngster but he couldn’t have done much better under such intense scrutiny.
Penrith have now to lift themselves for the trip to fellow struggles York this week in a relegation dogfight.
