On the face of it, a 34-5 defeat may look like another of Penrith Rugby Club's away-day horror shows but it wasn’t that bad at Birkenhead Park.

Their hosts are a decent side and were sharp enough to take all their chances.

Penrith had good spells of possession in the home 22 and pressured their line but struggled to turn their opportunities into points.

On the other hand, almost all of Penrith’s mistakes were clinically punished and they certainly don’t make things easy for themselves.

They spilled the ball the first time they took it into contact in the game and, after just 54 seconds, they were standing under their own posts, having conceded the opening try.

To be fair to the Cumbrians, they soon got into their game and won a scrum against the head, shunting the much bigger home pack off their own ball for Mike Raine to break from number eight and start an attack that ended on the Park line. They then won a penalty and kicked it to the corner, won the line-out and drove for the line.

Their initial drive was thwarted and they worked their way across the full width of the pitch with pick and goes but couldn’t breach the excellent home defence. They then won a penalty in the opposite corner and again kicked to touch for the attacking line-out, from which Dan Richardson secured the ball but the home defence was again up to the challenge.

Had they scored here when they had the chances, things might have been different but they then conceded another three tries before half-time as Birkenhead Park made the most of their opportunities.

Wingers Brad Taylor and Jon Fell were handling tricky situations in their own 22 to come away with the ball and make good ground.

They put together some decent passages of play for Penrith but weren’t just incisive enough and couldn’t break down the well-organised home defence.

Penrith conceded a fifth try when they were again turned over in midfield and gifted Park possession and, once more, the home side didn’t waste the chance.

They continued to battle, despite trailing by 27 points without reply, and their efforts were rewarded in the last 10 minutes when they won a line-out on the 22.

The forwards set-up the maul and, this time, the home pack didn’t hold them up and they rolled towards the line where Raine claimed the try which his outstanding play all afternoon deserved.

But just when they had something to perhaps build on, Penrith failed to take the restart kick and Park claimed it and scored a soft try to complete the scoring for the afternoon.