Old Penarthians reached the semi finals of the Cardiff Cup after a 13-10 victory at Barry RFC.
The young Bombers' hopes of a trophy were disappointingly dashed in a hard-fought local derby at a wind and rain-lashed Reservoir Field on Saturday.
It was perhaps an opportunity squandered. Playing against the elements in the first half, after conceding an early try, Barry largely kept the visitors at bay, and were only eight points adrift at the interval, with Old Pens' scoring all of their points in the first period.
“We did everything we wanted to do in the first half by holding them in the wind and rain,” said Barry head coach John Dimond.
“We felt we had done the first part of the job, and then it was more keep them down in their area and try to turn the screw on them a little bit.”
After the break, the momentum certainly was with Barry, but as Old Penarthians benefited from some debatable official decisions, the pressure was intermittent rather than sustained.
“With hindsight, I think they had the rub of the green,” said Dimond, and at times Barry’s frustration understandably showed.
Dimond felt there were also a couple of missed opportunities in the second half: “Mistakes were inevitable in the weather. It’s small margins, a couple of errors and a couple of incorrect decisions. But they’ll learn from them.”
Harvey Bryant scored all the visitors’ points with a third-minute try, which he converted, and penalties in the 19th and 30th minutes.
Barry replied with tries in the seventh minute of the first half and 14th minute of the second from Maverick Jennings and Rhys Berens, both resulting from an initial catch and drive.
“I’m disappointed to have lost by such a small margin,” said Dimond. “But we’ll regroup, have a couple of light training sessions, and go through things.”
Barry’s next match is at Beddau on December 14th in the second round of the WRU Youth Plate, which gives injured players ample time to recover, and the squad to shrug off the disappointment of Saturday’s defeat.
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