FLYING winger Jason Balmer raced in a hat-trick of tries but Kendal could not stop the tailspin that their campaign has been in since the turn of the year, conceding 25 unanswered points in a disappionting second-half display.

Final score Kendal 22 - Newbury 35.

At his inspirational best despite a virus, Balmer benefited as the home side looked to be making a good fist of overcoming consid-erable injury problems for this final league match.

After Newbury centre Mal Roberts kicked his side ahead with a fourth-minute penalty, Kendal responded with an impressive spell of play which began with Balmer scoring the first of his three tries.

Centre Chris Malherbe won good turnover ball on the edge of the Newbury 22 and Keith Robinson and Colin Wolstenholme made strong thrust from the recycled ball for it was moved wide for Balmer put his blistering pace to excellent use to dash over in the corner for an unconverted score.

Another piece of individual play by Balmer led to a second try in the 13th minute.

He chipped over the covering defence on a run down the wing but the ball drifted into touch two metres out.

Newbury won the lineout but Paul Dodds fielded the clearance kick and released Balmer, who blasted a way through the thick defence for a 35-metre run-in and Mike Scott added the conversion for a 12-3 lead.

Newbury cut the gap to two points, however, five minutes later with their first real attack of the afternoon.

A dummy switch move just outside the Kendal 22 opened up the defence for stand-off John Martin to take the final pass and run in beside the posts, with Roberts tacking on the extras.

Kendal then had to reshuffle when scrum-half Richard Morris and hooker Ian Gowing both went off with injuries in the space of three minutes.

Full back Paul Dodds went to scrum-half and kicked a drop-goal after 32 minutes when he took a long ball off his boot-end in the Newbury 22 and saw his kick hit the middle of the crossbar and ricochet over.

There was a lot of niggle between the sides at the breakdown and it led to Kendal's Ian Voortman and Newbury's Andy Evans being sinbinned four minutes from half time.

But Kendal still finished the first half strongly when the ball was presented for Balmer to scoot away and although stopped just short of the tryline, he turned in the tackle to ground the ball successfully, which with Scott's conversion, gave his side a 22-10 half-time lead.

Newbury kept the ball much better in the second half and began to test the home defence more thoroughly and Kendal lost the inspirational Balmer, who took a knock and had to leave the field.

After 57 minutes, Kendal were guilty of a basic defensive error when the visitors' No.

8 Jeff Pickthall was allowed to stroll through for a try from 25 metres out.

After Roberts kicked the conversion, he added a penalty to cut the deficit to two points again.

This time it was Newbury who turned the screw as good play from the forwards saw prop Kevin Gough driven over for an unconverted score to edge them into a 25-22 lead.

Four minutes later, Robert added a third penalty and Newbury kept on the pressure to score a fourth try, again converted, when the forwards set up an opening for the backs to exploit and Andy Evans went in under the posts.

Prop Billy Coxon was presented with the Peter Kremer Trophy for the players' player of the year by Mr Kremer's widow, Lesley, in the clubhouse afterwards.

Director of Rugby Chris Hayton said: "We celeberated the end of the season too early - at 10 past four to be precise because we faded badly and allowed them to run in 25 points in the last 20 minutes, which was very disappointing.

"Jason (Balmer) got off his sick-bed to play and he was on fire, but he could not really manage all the match and we had to bring him off.

"We got two scores ahead and then had the opportunity to go three up but kicked a penalty to the corner in an attempt to drive over for the try and it didn't happen.

"Then a mix-up in defence allowed Newbury an easy try and that gave them a bit of a lift while tiredness and injuries caught up with us."