Just Edged Out in Tight Game

Kirkby had an excellent home record, having only lost there twice this season, to Wirral and Carlisle, whilst their win at Kendal is their only one on the road.

Kendal started with a very young back row of James Cox, James Thompson and Matty Houghton, with Garry Homes and Billy Coxon on the bench

In damp windy conditions Kendal started the better, and rather than go for goal with early penalties, looked to set up positions for tries, but the Kirkby defence held out.

After withstanding the Kendal assault, Kirkby set up an attack in the Kendal half, but this time it was Kendal’s defence which held out and Kirkby came away empty handed.

The two teams had contrasting styles with Kendal playing their normal powerful forward based game, whilst Kirkby mixed a strong forward presence, with a desire to keep the ball moving. Kendal’s cause was not being helped by failings at the line out, plus frequent loss of the ball in contact, whilst Kirkby failed to take a number of opportunities when overlaps appeared.

After twenty minutes, Kirkby prop Groves was sent to the sin bin, which finally gave Kendal a platform in the scrum, but the Kendal momentum was frequently disrupted by a number of Kirkby injury stoppages, which finally saw Kirkby prop Law forced to leave the field, and his replacement helped anchor the scrum. On one occasion Kirkby appeared fortunate to avoid a penalty try, as a flanker broke early, as the Kendal scrum drove for the line.

The match remained scoreless at half time.

A minute into the second half Kendal made changes with Billy Coxon and Garry Holmes replacing Glen Chesher and James Cox. This seemed to revitalise the Kendal pack, who finally started to put extra pressure on the opposition scrum, that had been a feature of recent games.

The Kirkby defence managed to withstand the Kendal pressure, and set up their own attack.

After sixty five minutes of play the deadlock was finally broken. With Kirkby on the attack close to the Kendal line, Billy Coxon flew out of the defensive line, to intercepted a pass. Instead of this setting up a Kendal breakaway, the referee penalised him, adjudging that he had done this from an offside position awarding Kirkby a penalty, and also sin binning Coxon, which appeared harsh. The penalty was converted 3v0.

The Kendal re-start failed to make the required distance, which immediately put Kendal on the back foot, with Kirkby tails up, plus a man advantage.

Kendal had to take Garry Holmes off to bring Glen Chesher back onto the field to cover Coxon’s absence. Jordan Johnson also replaced Andrew Boardley on the left wing.

Unlike Kendal, Kirkby made their extra man advantage count, and after strong work by the forwards down the left hand touchline, they added an unconverted try. 8v0.

Once Billy Coxon’s ten minutes absence ended, and he and Garry Holmes returned to the field, Kendal went back on the attack, and this time after the forwards set up a number of drives, outside half Dan Lowther broke away to score. The conversion failed, but Kendal were within a score, with three minutes of normal play to go.

Kirkby however made sure that Kendal had no opportunities to add to their score, keeping them penned in their own half for the remainder of the game, and looked the more likely to score, and take away Kendal’s losing bonus point, as they continued to keep the ball moving, rather than tie it up and run the clock down.

So Kendal had to be satisfied with their sixth losing bonus point of the season.

Whichever team had lost this game would have been left rueing their missed opportunities, but on balance Kirkby probably just about deserved the victory, for their attempts to play fifteen man rugby and keep the ball moving, whilst in young scrum half Ben Walker they had the outstanding player in the game.

Referee : Matthew Turvey

PHOTO : Reece Tomlinson gets highest to claim lineout ball.