Narrow Victory in Windy Conditions

From the original selection, Mark Carruthers replaced Matty Houghton who had been forced to drop out.

As predicted the game was extremely close and the windy weather had a huge influence on the pattern of the contest.

Penrith dominated possession for the first twenty minutes driving into the wind keeping the ball tight and occasionally moving it out right, they were quite lively during this period.

When Kendal came into the game they could not sustain continuous pressure, kicking directly into touch a couple of times and consequently losing hard gained ground. Despite having the wind in Kendal’s favour it still cause problems with a couple of penalty attempts failing to hit their target.

Finally a good break by Damian Armstrong set up a try in the corner for Zane Butler

This completed the scoring in the first half and the teams turned round with Kendal holding a slender 5-0 lead.

With use of the wind, Penrith almost immediately hit back at the start of the second half, opening their scoring with a Matt Allinson penalty, after Kendal were penalised for illegal bringing the forward drive to a halt

Penrith used the wind better than Kendal in the second half and the game was played much more in Kendal territory.

As all season however, Kendal's defence was solid, and after holding firm they managed to create a period of pressure of their own that resulted in repeated rucks on the Penrith line, from which Duncan Green forced his way over. 10-3.

Now it was Penrith's turn to move into the attack and after continuous drives on the right the ball was moved quickly into the backs, a neat diagonal kick to the corner left the defence struggling and Penrith wing Phil Armstrong dived over. Conversions continued to present a problem and Kendal retained a narrow lead 10-8.

Kendal were having difficulty controlling play and with time running out another penalty gave Penrith a fairly straight kick from the 10 metre line. Fortunately for Kendal the ball hit the upright and they were able to scramble it away.

The last five minutes produced some nail biting stuff so it was a relief when the final whistle went.

A 10-8 win may have been scraped but considering the conditions both teams are to be congratulated on serving up such spirited fare.

Many thanks to Geoff Causey who wrote the majority of this report. Supplied from 1,000 miles away in the Alps by our French correspondent, with added details from him from Radio Cumbria’s coverage (via the internet), plus additional information on Penrith’s scorers taken from Mike Sanderson’s excellent report on their website.

PRESS HERE to read Mike Sanderson's full report on the Penrith website

PHOTO : Captain Duncan Green - scorer of the second try