A first ever visit to Glossop (in Derbyshire), a very open ground, certainly not somewhere to be on a wet and windy day, but fortunately for our visit it was a sunny afternoon, with a cold wind.

Glossop came into the game with only two home losses this season, both by narrow margins to the top two teams, whilst Kendal were on a run of two defeats and a draw, and only one away win since Christmas.

The only change to the team, selected team from last weekend's team, saw Mark Carruthers replace Joe Fiddler on the wing and Joe Cook replace Carruthers on the bench, but Steven Nelson failed to recover from an injury and Alex Ryder came onto the bench with Dane Blenkharn moving into the back row, with Matt Houghton going to No.8.

Glossop dominated possession for most of the first half, keeping the ball through multiple phases, but rarely looked likely to breach the Kendal defence.

Kendal were struggling to get possession, with problems in the lineout, and the scrum in trouble. When Kendal had the ball it was kicked away and regularly found Glossop players who just ran the ball back. For a second week, Kendal's main weapon was the driving maul, which even a burly Glossop pack struggled to tame,

As the half came to an end Kendal made a rare visit to the Glossop half. Dane Blenkharn stole Glossop ball to set up an attack, but from the resulting passing move, Ben Dixon was unable to hold onto possibly his first pass of the game.

Kendal however stayed on attack and at the end of normal time, Glen Weightman broke the defence and whilst stopped was able to get a pass away to Jordan Johnson in support to go over for a try, against the run of play of the half. Chris Park added the conversion 0v7.

Glossop forced an error on the restart, to get a scrum, but Kendal held out for the three minutes of added time to retain their unlikely lead.

Kendal came more into the game in the second half, but Glossop continued to have more of the ball

A try looked inevitable from a break down the left wing, but Chris Park, managed to prevent the ball being grounded to give Kendal a goal line drop out to clear the danger.

Finally after twenty five minutes Glossop breached the Kendal defence from short range but the conversion failed, so Kendal retained a narrow lead. 5v7.

The score saw Liam Hayton and Alex Ryder come on for Reece Tomlinson and Dane Blenkharn.

The final change with five minutes to play saw Joe Cook come on for Mark Carruthers.

With less than five minutes to play Kendal won a string of penalties and went looking for a try to make the game safe. On the final one the forwards drove to the line, but the Glossop pack stopped the ball being grounded to win a goal line drop out.

From this they set up an attack which saw an almost length of the field move, ending in a try which was converted 7v12.

With only added time to play, Kendal went looking for a late score to snatch victory, but Glossop held out.

Similar disappointment to Billingham about ten years ago, when they snatched victory well into added time, in a game like Glossop they had dominated.

Next week a different task with Douglas the visitors at Mint Bridge, and a good performance being vital, to put pressure on Waterloo, who have moved into third spot, but have a difficult final game at Manchester, who are ending the season in some style.

KENDAL MAN OF THE MATCH

Dane Blenkharn

OTHER RESULTS

The bad news continued with Waterloo getting a high scoring narrow win against Broughton Park

Some high scoring games - Manchester is no suprise but Bowdon winning by 4 points in 102 ! Also Vale of Lune thrashing Birkenhead Park

TABLE

So we drop to fourth, out of the "potential" promotion places, and need to win our final two home games and hope Waterloo do not get anything at Manchester on the final day.

Penrith close to within 2 points, but finish with a trip to Birkenhead Park (who will be keen to bounce back after thier big loss at Vlae) and then Stockport at home.