Croesyceiliog were comfortable 30-0 winners in a pre-season fixture and gave the Miner Birds a taster of how difficult their league affair would be this season.
Since then the Miner Birds have flourished and were crowned Division 3 champions in January and set themselves up with the likes of Seaview, Gorseinon, Tylorstown and Croesyceiliog in the Women’s Plate competition.
Since the fixtures were released for the competition, The Miner Birds goal was the clash at home to Croesy to measure how far they have come in six months and the whole of Penallta are thrilled with the outcome.
The game itself was played in rare sunshine and it promised to be a superb game of running rugby. Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way but instead it was down to the physicality of the forwards and miraculous defence by the Miner Birds that secured victory against a very good Croesy outfit.
The first try came from the Miner Birds No 8 Abbie Taylor from a maul. Taylor is impressing the Penallta faithful as she made run after run and she is now on the top try scoring sheet making it 14 for the season.
In the second half Croesy came at Penallta with all guns blazing and their forward play was impressive and put the Miner Birds on the back foot. It wasn’t until the 55th minute that the deadlock was broken when Sarah Harper ran down the right wing to score her first try in Penallta colours. With Taylor converting Penallta were heading to full time with a 12-0 lead.
Croesy, to their credit never gave up and came away with a good try from Danielle Gangne which was converted by Kerry Jenkins. There was still 20mins of play remaining and full credit goes to the Miner Birds defence as “The Cockerels” ran everything and were unlucky to have two tries of their own disallowed, one for a forward pass and the other held up over the line.
Players of the match went to Charlotte Kembrey (forward) and Rhian Owen (back) for Croesy whilst Abbie Taylor was the overall player of the match for the Penallta Miner Birds.
The victory leaves the Miner Birds still undefeated in both league and cup competitions this season.
Penallta host Tylorstown this coming Sunday in what is another must win game while Croesy travel to Gorseinon on March 17th.
