CLECKHEATON 9 KENDAL 23

Kendal travelled across the M62 to play Cleckheaton and on a very blustery day, with the wind behind them in the first half, dominated territory through the ever accurate boot of Dan Stephens in the first half.

It was however Cleckheaton who put the first points on the board in the opening few minutes when Kendal were penalised at a ruck. Winger Owen Edwards struck a good penalty into the wind to give the home side a 3 nil lead.

Dan Stephens not to be out done kicked two long range penalties in the twelfth and fifteenth minutes to give Kendal the lead.
When veteran second row John Dudley was sin binned on the half hour mark Kendal took full advantage from the penalty kick into the corner and prop forward Billy Coxon reaped the rewards when he was driven over the whitewash, from the lineout by his pack, to score an unconverted try.

Five minutes later with Cleckheaton under all sorts of pressure a bewildering long pass across the front of their own posts, which was fumbled, resulted in a Kendal scrum and with the Kendal front row of Coxon, Green and Harryman once again giving awesome performances the Cleckheaton pack could not hold the scrum legally and the referee rightly awarded the penalty try which Stephens converted to give his side a 18 – 3 lead at the break.

Edwards with an enormous penalty kick from inside his own half pulled three points back early in the second half, moments later he again found the target with his third penalty of the afternoon.

But Kendal took a scrum against the head in the fifty-first minute and the ball was swiftly transferred along the back line for Andrew Hudson, lurking out on the right touch line, to power his way through a couple of would be tacklers and touch down wide out for an unconverted try.

The last quarter of the game deteriorated into a scrappy affair, littered with handling errors and with neither side able to control the ball for any length of time.

But any win away from home in North One is a good win and keeps Kendal’s unbeaten record intact.