Beavers Romp To Victory Scoring Seven Tries Against Penrith

 

Better. Much better. After a disappointing defeat in their opening game Beverley RUFC gave notice that they are back in town in front of their own fans at Beaver Park.

They romped away to a fine win, scoring seven tries and ending the match looking more like the side that had swept all before it last year in North One. Penrith are no mean side and there was plenty of good rugby on show from both sides. Penrith gave as good as they got but they could never quite match Beverley’s fluid attacking play and in the end they simply had to accept second best.

In the opening exchanges it looked ominous for Beverley as the big Penrith pack swarmed all over them. But when Beverley broke out of their 22 with a penalty they swept upfield and from the penalty lineout moved the ball quickly left where Tomasi Tanumi went over. It set the pattern of play for the rest of the afternoon. Penrith never ceased to produce plenty of power and forward momentum but they seldom looked like breaking through whereas Beverley looked likely to score whenever they had the ball in their hands.

Pale Tuilagi for Penrith and Phil Duboulay for Beverley were both wide with penalty attempts as play ebbed to and fro. Beverley steadily got to grips with the big Penrith pack whose early lustre gradually faded. Indeed by the end of the game the Penrith pack was regularly being driven backwards in the scrums. Beverley might have had half a dozen more tries before the interval but some of their passing was sloppy and several chances went begging.

Eventually just before halftime they got over twice within the space of two minutes. A jinking run through the middle by winger Tom Carr set up a second try for Tanumi and then Richard Bussey put Carr in at the corner. Duboulay had a good game but he is presently out of sorts with his kicking which meant Beverley turned round with only fifteen points to show from their three tries.

Within five minutes of the start of the second half Penrith had narrowed the gap to 15-7. The ball went loose in the Beverley corner and scrum half Ed Swale pounced to touch down for a try which Tuilagi converted with a fine kick from the touchline. Direct from the restart Beverley re-asserted their supremacy with a try by Joe Pickets who dived onto a lofted chip over the defence by Tom Steadman. Birch took over the kicking duties and proceeded to slot all his conversion attempts. At 22-7 Beverley were as good as out of sight.

Their early handling errors had evaporated and they turned it on with three more outstanding tries. Junior Tupai touched down from a well worked set move from a scrum; Birch finished off a flowing breakout from the Beverley 22 with a gliding run from halfway which included several devastating sidesteps towards the posts, and Pickets rounded it off with a try from a five metre scrum.

Penrith were unlucky to lose Tuilagi their outstanding fly half with a second half injury and were later reduced to fourteen men when prop Glen Carr was red carded for punching. Although Beverley made the most of Penrith’s misfortune the final outcome by then had long been settled.

Beverley coach Anthony Posa now looks to be in the happy position of having a squad with plenty of strength in depth. He could take a good deal of satisfaction from this game, not least from the performance of some of the young newcomers.

Carr had a lively game on the wing and Alex Keeton when he came on again looked the part at prop, as did Jack Lee at scrum half and Paul Steadman in the second row. The back row of Jack Thompson, Joe Pickets and James Holland was outstanding. David Worrall’s re-appearance, coming off the bench, was warmly welcomed and his impact on the game was no less than what we have long become used to.

Final Score : Beverley RUFC 47 Penrith 7 | Reported by John Nursey

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