KIRKBY Lonsdale continued their winning start to the season with a 24-14 victory over local rivals Kendal at Underley Park.

Kendal had the kick off on Saturday and found themselves behind early on when from deep in their own half, Kirkby moved the ball quickly to the left where wing Martyn Knapton scorched down the touchline to score.

Kendal narrowed the gap after ten minutes. After his poor pass put the team under pressure, James Gough more than made up for it by taking a penalty quickly and making good ground before feeding Danny Barker, but he did not have the pace to go over. Kirkby, however, gave away a penalty which Glen Weightman put over to narrow the score to 5-3.

Liam Hayton was shown a yellow card for a late tackle, but despite being a player down, Kendal had the better of the next ten minutes.

The Kirkby defence was coming up very fast to cut off passes as Kendal tried to attack, but Weightman was able to exploit this and found a gap and drew the defender to get a pass away to Dini Noyo. Ralston read the move and tackled Dini as he took the ball to prevent the try.

After the sunny start, the weather took a turn and there was a heavy shower, which marked Hayton’s return, and Kendal taking the lead with a second Weightman penalty.

The pressure of expectation seemed to be weighing on some of the Kirkby backs, who were snatching at passes leading to a number of handling errors which helped Kendal to hold out.

As the half came to an end, Weightman added a third penalty to extend the Kendal lead to 9-5.

While Kendal had failed to convert early chances into points after the restart, Kirkby almost immediately took theirs.

On the attack in the Kendal half, they put the ball through several phases before skipper Ben Walker changed the tactic by flighting a beautiful kick over Noyo’s despairing leap and Kirkby winger Harry Ralston was able to gather and score the second try. The touchline conversion was just wide but Kirkby were back in front at 10-9 with a lead they were never to lose.

Things soon got even better for Kirkby. Kendal were trying to run the ball out of defence but Barker delayed his pass, and anticipating this, Walker was able to intercept and outrun the cover to score a try under the posts. Fullback Ryan Terry added the conversion to push the score to 17-9.

Kirkby then moved then clear of their rivals after winning the ball at a scrum, allowing No.8 Alex Rogers an untroubled run to the line. Terry was again accurate with the kick to move Kirkby 15 points ahead.

Having secured a bonus point and a healthy lead, Kirkby seemed to take the foot off the gas in attack, but were still solid in defence to prevent Kendal finding any way back into the game.

Finally, deep into injury time, after Kirkby had been reduced to fourteen men with a yellow card, good work on the left saw the ball moved to the right for Damian Armstrong to score. The conversion was taken quickly and missed as Kendal went in search of another losing bonus point, but it was Kirkby who finished the game on the front foot but were unable to add to the score.