PENRYN 15pts

CONEY HILL 62pts

THE result of this South West Two West bottom versus top game at the Memorial Ground must surely condemn Penryn to relegation to Western Counties West next season. Late withdrawals and unavailabilities left the team badly depleted.

An indication of the shortage of players is the fact that Andrew Seviour, who came on in the second half when Ian Morgan had to withdraw with an injury, had already made a major contribution to the Borough Colt's emphatic victory over Perranporth in the CRFU under 18 cup competition.

This is the one bright light for Penryn at the moment. The Colts are unbeaten in this competition and on course for a quarter final place on March 17.

The home team's scores were few and far between as they tried to stem the deluge of tries from the league leaders who ended by scoring 12. Fortunately for Penryn, the visitors appeared incapable of fielding a kicker as only one of their tries was converted.

For the Borough, fly half Ian Morgan kicked a penalty goal in the fifth minute after the visitors had gone ahead with a try almost from the kick off and converted flanker Peter Webster's try on the hour. Morgan converted but by then the visitors had 42 points on the board.

The Borough's other try came in the 70th minute when scrum half Paul Bannister crossed after a break by winger Josh Chambers. The rest was all Coney Hill.

After the close game against Brixham a couple of weeks ago Borough were confident that they could at least extend the visitors, who certainly did not look as strong as Brixham. They have a strong running wing in Danny Carr, who scored five of their tries, and a good all round solid defence.

The second half was a almost one way traffic with Coney Hill running in six more tries, none of which were converted, making the final score 15-62 to the victors.

The club will no doubt lick its wounds and prepare for the next game, which is away to Camborne on February 17.

Penryn: A Richards, W Paine, K Naivaluvu, C Mann, JChambers, I Morgan (A Seviour, 60m), P Bannister, M Tarby, GWills, S Savvas, C Cole, P Webster, C Johnson, E Lawrence.

There is no 1st XV game this coming Saturday, but the club's Colts XV play Penzance & Newlyn. They have a strong squad, and are playing some excellent rugby in their quest for County Cup honours, so they could do with all the support they can get.

The virtues and attractions of the RFU EDF national cup competitions for those four clubs from the two counties that are within spitting distance of appearances at Twickenham is obvious, but for those who are knocked out in the early stages it leaves them with blank Saturdays.

There is an opposite point of view, namely that fewer cups and bigger leagues below the National Leagues would help clubs knocked out in the early rounds.

In any pure knock-out competition one does not have to be a mathematician to work out that half of the clubs go out in the first round. There is a total of seven rounds including the final, so those 96 clubs could be without a 1st XV fixture on five or six Saturdays in the season.

This would not have mattered a few years ago because those clubs would quickly arrange friendlies. But that does not seem to happen any more.

For reasons unknown to the players and officials of the 50s, 60s and 70s, friendly fixtures seem very much a thing of the past, and when a club arranges such a fixture it often finds it is unable to raise a side.

So what is my point? It is namely that there are too many Saturdays without games in grass roots clubs. Solution: reduce or eliminate the various Intermediate and Vase Cup Competitions and make leagues bigger to enable the locals to be able to visit their local club more frequently.

Below the National Leagues let us have more regionalisation, and a return to the days when it was possible for supporters to travel to away matches, because most fixtures were within sensible travelling distance.