PENRYN 8pts MARLOW 3pts

This was a hard fought win over the Buckinghamshire club in this Powergen preliminary round game at the Memorial Ground.

Penryn had to make late changes when Chris Mann was unable to play because of his duties with the ambulance service. Alan Richards came in as full back, James Greville-Smith moved to left wing and Darren Pellow switched to the right wing.

Any thoughts Borough might have had of running up a big score against a team in a league lower were quickly dispelled as the visitors clearly came with the idea of winning.

The game turned out to be very hard, with neither team gaining absolute advantage over the other. Marlow had almost certainly done their homework and set out to ensure that Borough did not release their full potential outside the scrums and lineouts. They employed spoiling tactics using their back row to contain Borough very effectively.

The visitors started very strongly and were camped in the Borough half for most of the first ten minutes. Fortunately for Borough, as it later turned out, their only reward was a missed penalty goal attempt after the home side infringed.

The game began to swing more in Penryn's favour and Dave Pascoe put Borough three points up when Marlow infringed near their own line. It stayed that way until almost the end of the half when the home forwards drove over the line with James Mann scoring the try. A very difficult conversion attempt failed and Borough ended the half eight points ahead.

The half time score proved enough for Penryn, but Marlow who knew all the tricks of the trade, were handed two yellow cards before the break and this did not help their cause.

In the second half there was little between the two teams, but with Borough probably having slight advantage, although a home yellow card half way through the second half did not help, in the last ten minutes the visitors threw every thing in to the attack.

Fortunately for Borough they could only add a Simon Swadling penalty goal to make the final score 8-3.

Marlow came dangerously close in this period and had they scored a try this would have led to a period of extra time. A goal would have given the visitors a narrow win, and had they converted three penalties awarded during the match who knows what would have happened? This would have been an injustice because Borough, in a rough, tough, ding-dong, end-to-end game, were slightly the better side.

But the home side's luck held, and their defence held out, with every player doing his bit to hold the line.

Whilst Borough did not turn in one of their better performances it must be remembered that they were without winger Chris Mann and captain Justin Doney, whilst Allen Jordan was also unavailable and Darren Stanley has retired. They also included seven new players in the 22-man squad and each of them contributed by being on the field for all or part of the game.

It takes time for a squad with this number of new players to settle down, particularly in the case of the forwards, but there were some very promising aspects of the game. The real crunch will come when Borough play their first South West 1 League game against old rivals Gloucester Old Boys at home this coming Saturday.

This win means Borough will travel to play Hayward's Heath in the first round proper, on September 18. The Heath, situated in West Sussex, play in National League III South.

Re-founded in 1958, Heath became the first Sussex club to reach the National Leagues in 2002, beating Reading in the promotion play-off. Having successfully retained National league status for the 2004-05 season, and seen the already successful youth section expand considerably, the club has embarked on a major strategic review setting out its ambitions on administration, on the playing side and on the development of its facilities.

It will be a very difficult task to overcome a team in a higher league and away from home, but cup-ties are different and the underdog quite often comes out on top.