Sunderland RCA 0 Penrith Town 1

Arngrove Northern League Division 2

Saturday, 20 October 2007

A tough old game. RCA had most of the play from start to finish, but Penrith looked dangerous on the break throughout.

Scott Richards and Scott Thompson came in for their debuts and both fitted in well, with Richards prompting from midfield and Thompson holding the ball up well from the front, although he took a knock and had to leave the field after an hour to be replaced by Willie Crew.

Overall, we looked a little short of pace with some of our quick players missing, and to be fair, until late in the second half the goalkeepers were largely spectators, and a single goal as always likely to be enough.

The game turned on an incident in the 75th minute when Matty Hyson could only lift a header into the roof of the net as he tried to clear for a corner. The goal lifted Penrith and Craig Shields had to make a couple of smart saves in the next few minutes, but RCA went for broke in the last ten and camped out in the Penrith area. A goal mouth scramble might have seen the ball into the net, but in the end Penrith held on and ran out narrow winners. The Cumbrians are always competitive and we were by no means second best, so let's hope it is just a temporary set back as we look to continue our improvement of recent weeks.