CUMBRIA warmed up for their County Championship campaign on May with a 42-37 win in a friendly with Northumberland at Tynedale on Tuesday evening.

Trailing 37-21, Cumbria introduced seven replacements and cut the deficit to two points before South African full back Dannie Kesselman went over for the winning try.

Kendal skipper Mike Scott landed his sixth conversion to give Cumbria the boost they wanted for the long trip to play Devon at Teignmouth on May 4.

Team manager Roger Hackney said: "Quite a number of the squad had to miss out through injury but the players on duty produced some fluid positive rugby which was very encouraging."

Kendal's South African centre Ian Voortman supplied the final pass for one of Cumbria's six tries and team-mates Mark Bowman David Preston, Adrian Bateson and mike Burnett were in the squad.

Workington retained the Daniel Thwaites Cumbria Cup when they beat Aspatria 33-22 in the final at the Ellis Sports Ground.

The Zebras led 21-3 at the break helped by tries from their centres Dion Seath, a former Kendal player, and Martin Armstrong.

Man of the match Armstrong went on to complete his hat-trick in the second half by scoring the best two tries of the game - the second one a spectacular effort from halfway.

Aspatria scored tries from Dannie Kasselman, Ian Rumney and John Clappison but their surge came too late in the day after Workington had been temporarily reduced to 13 men as Jason Howarth and Daniel Bowman both went to the sinbin within a minute.