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03 May 2016 / Club News

A hell of a way to lose, but a proud day for village community rugby

So many of you were there at the Principality Stadium to experience it first hand it would be surplus to requirements to write a full report on Sunday’s Swalec Plate final.

 

With it being on TV and with most of us having access to a SKY planner, most Penallta fans have been able to relive the agonising last five minutes by watching it through the splayed fingers covering our faces. The torment of that drop goal! That painful, excruciating final 20 phases of such-composed Bedlinog play, and then that wonderful drop goal to finish it. Such clinical play under pressure from the winners, such agony for the losers. Only a Penallta fan steeped in the joys of self-harm could’ve enjoyed watching those final, painful death throes.

 

Safe to say that every Penallta fan there would’ve been proud of the monumental defensive effort from the Penallta players. It nearly, so very nearly….. got us over the line. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

 

Firstly, huge congratulations to our oldest rivals Bedlinog. The Plate win was deserved, certainly in view of the enormous possession they enjoyed. Bedlinog have been the best side below the Championship this season without a doubt. Their form has put them in a position where they could win an incredible hat-trick of titles (Plate, Silver Ball, Division 1 East) and that is an awesome effort. We won two out of three of those titles with the great squad we had last year. For Bedlinog to eclipse that would take something special and they now look odds on to do it. Well done to them, it will be a stellar achievement.

 

Tough games between competitive sides are won by the most slender of margins. Those margins are critical to deciding where the silverware goes. If Penallta’s narrow 6-3 loss away to Bedlinog earlier in the season was decisive in where the league title is heading, then the Plate finish was decided by arguably the tightest margin I’ve seen yet. The 83rd minute drop goal by full back Liam Jones was as heartbreaking for Penallta as it was sweet for Bedlinog. We can all remember Jonny Wright’s injury time drop-goal to put Merthyr away and send Lee Jarvis to his knees a couple of season’s back. Well, if we enjoyed that spectacular moment of magic then Bedlinog must’ve been launched into outer space by Jones’ effort.

 

My Welsh isn’t as good as it once was but I could understand enough of the TV commentary to know that the pundits were less than impressed with Penallta’s austere style of play. Unusually for Penallta – and perhaps for many of the travelling supporters – we kicked a lot of possession away and were risk-averse. That may have come as an bewildering surprise to many, but anybody who watched Bedlinog beat Penallta home and away in the league this season will have understood the game plan, and why Penallta had to take the approach they did.

 

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t true to our nature. It wasn’t the stuff of attacking Penallta folklore. But it was the correct thing to do and it very nearly worked.

 

The reality is that Bedlinog’s pack is huge, their defence is superb and Penallta’s coaches and players knew that a quick-phase game with a flowing attack isn’t possible against them. In short, our players just aren’t big enough to match them. Bedlinog are so powerful in the tackle area and so heavy and strong and difficult to budge that we had to change tactics and continually kick the ball long to turn their big forwards. Yes, it made for a game more suited to technical connoisseurs than rugby romantics, but it almost won us the title.

 

If the Penallta attacking approach wasn’t to everybody’s taste, then it was impossible to criticise the defensive effort. The players fought fire with fire all day long and put in one of the proudest defensive efforts in Penallta’s history. Make no mistake, Bedlinog are a high quality side and have been putting cricket scores on all-comers this season. On Saturday, Penallta’s proud effort prevented them from scoring a try and nearly exhausted every strategy they possessed. It was the first time Bedlinog have failed to score a try in a game since they played us at their ground in the 6-3 defeat. So yes, we have lost three out of three to the newly-crowned Plate champions this season, but keeping Bedlinog try-less in two games out of three is some effort and it would be churlish for anybody to argue that Penallta didn’t give it their very best shot on Sunday, both tactically and in terms of sheer resolve and determination. Pretty? No. Unbelievably committed and brave? Yes.

 

Well done boys, all 23 of you in the match-day squad – and happily for us, just like in the 2012 Plate win, all the squad members got on the field – plus the coaches and back-up staff, deserve enormous credit for a proud effort. There can only ever be one winner in a sporting duel, and the jeopardy the win/lose scenario creates can be clearly seen in the supporter’s faces post-match. The perdurable contrast between agony and ecstasy was in full view in the lower tier of the Principality Stadium. On Sunday it wasn’t to be for Penallta, but you boys gave it everything you had and the club is immensely proud of you all.

 

As for the supporters, I’m sure I can speak on behalf of the whole Penallta committee in saying a HUGE THANK YOU to everybody for making such a great effort to turn out in your droves. I was told on Saturday that there were more supporters there to watch Bedlinog versus Penallta than there were for the Swalec Cup final played afterwards. How great that is to hear? Two community village clubs punching well above their weight both on and off the field.

 

It was a fabulous day and it was magnificent to see supporters from all the age groups there to support the boys. From parents of the Under 7s to life members to the former players and the current youth boys and right through to the women’s section and the diehards, it really was a great, great experience to see so many faces there from so many eras and so many aspects of the club.  And everybody behaved impeccably. Thank you so much for doing the club proud.

 

The whole day was a fabulous experience. Anyone who travelled on the supporter’s coaches and joined the party at the Bierkeller and the Penallta clubhouse afterwards might easily be lured into thinking that the Penallta duck casually floats across the top of the pond with the most nonchalant ease. In reality, we were paddling like mad underneath the surface over the past fortnight trying to organise things so that the day didn’t turn into an unholy mess (a mess is always eminently possible when you’re herding 500 or so drunk people around the city centre…. and especially when the committee members are as drunk as everybody else!). But I think you’d all agree that the day went pretty smoothly and hopefully everybody really enjoyed themselves. I know I did.

 

So thanks again to the supporters, players and the coaches for creating such a marvellous day for the club. We’ve had our fair share of national stadium experiences and should never get greedy but we’d it would be great to one day do it all again. It is important to always appreciate what a privilege it is to play at such an incredible arena and on Sunday everybody looked overwhelmed with pride and satisfaction that a community club like ours can perform with such natural poise on the grandest stage. To the manor born, indeed.

 

In the end, the world’s greatest horror novelist couldn’t have dreamt up a more cruel way to lose but everybody behaved with huge dignity and magnanimity in defeat and celebrated the achievements of the players afterwards. Well done to you all. Hopefully one day we will return to the national stadium and get to celebrate another huge day for the club. The way everybody conducted themselves on Saturday, on and off the field, you’d be hard pressed to say the club doesn’t deserve it.

 

Well done Penallta. It’s an honour to be part of such a great club. And well done Bedlinog – what a way to win! Nobody will ever forget that finish in a hurry.

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