Egremont 37 Kendal Development XV 22

Another uncharacteristically lovely day welcomed the development xv to visit Egremont. After a few injuries, and first team call ups, and some problems around navigating past the world famous Egremont crab fair, the development squad put up a brave preformance.
Apologies to the reader this week, but to go in to a blow by blow report would be pretty unfair on both sides ( as I can't remember the sequence of the scores, will improve for next week all!!) But the hosts went 22 - 0 up within about 25 mins, Kendal struck back when man of the match James Cox was first to react at a flapped at ball in a line out to make it 22 - 5, but the hosts scored again for a 27 - 5 half time lead.
playing back up the hill in the second half Kendal were a lot brighter, showing some real determined spirit, working patterns a lot better, and drew first blood in the half through Toby Knowles in the corner, after some now great trademark handling got him in. A fairly bizarre incident, when Callum Atkinson showed great anticipation to snaffle some tapped back lineout ball, ran 15 yards, only to be penalised for being offside (he must be that good, there's now 2 of him! ), This saw the Egremont side put the ball in the corner, and score from the resulting lineout. Again Kendal sprang into life, with great broken play handling from the whole team, but hooker Jackson finding himself to the fore in space. A period of extreme pressure saw Chris Evans, returning from his cricketing sabbatical, scoring near the posts, converted by Matty Kaye. Again the host team came back, and after some good play, again they scored in the corner. In the final 10 mins Kendal showed a refusal to give up, continually attempting to play good rugby. A break by Ben Leacock, supported by his second row partner Atkinson, saw 2 quick recycled ruck balls, and the ball span out to Jordan Johnson, who sped into complete the scoring.
A game in which both teams showed good spirit, and tried to play with ball in hand, leading to a exciting spectacle, which the home fans enjoyed from both sides. An example of this saw the home full back kick, and pin Kendal back, Gage at full back swept up the ball, stayed on his feet well, made some yards, only for the Kendal team to get back to support him, then break out in to another attack, and was appreciated by the home side support with a cry of "he's done great there, and this running back is better than just hoofing it, good stuff!!" Plenty of positives from the day, as well as things to work on for this exciting young side!!

Arthur Pirie