KENDAL and Kirkby Lonsdale begin their North One West campaigns on Saturday against league newcomers Leigh and Blackburn respectively.

The Black and Ambers travel to Leigh while the Underley Park outfit make the journey to east Lancashire. Both kick off at 3pm.

The Shap Road club open their season following Thursday night's 28-24 friendly win over Preston Grasshoppers.

Early play was fairly scrappy with both teams making a string of handling errors, leading to scrums, which slowed the game down.

Kendal opened the scoring after a break from Nathan Woof, making his first appearance of the season.

His run was ended by a high tackle, which gave Kendal a penalty which was put to touch.

The forwards secured the ball and when it was moved into midfield, Matty Houghton had come off his wing, and managed to power out of a tackle to go over for the try, which Chris Park converted.

The second score came five minutes later. Despite having the lighter pack, the Kendal eight managed to steal a Preston scrum put in, and when the ball came back to him, Glen Weightman weaved his way through the defence for a try, again converted by Park.

The solid Kendal defence, with centres Alistair Thompson and Mark Carruthers prominent, meant the Hoppers back line had very few opportunities.

But on the stroke of half-time, Preston got their opening score with an unconverted try, as their pack drove over after a lineout following a penalty.

Kendal started the second half well and immediately put the Hoppers line under pressure.

Gough and Garry Holmes combined to take the ball to the line, and when the ball came back, captain Duncan Green went over for the score, again converted by Chris Park.

The size and power of the Hoppers pack started to tell, and after ten minutes play, from another lineout, the Hoppers forwards drove over for a try.

This was repeated six minutes later as Kendal had no answer to the powerful drive.

And when the Hoppers forwards set up a fourth try six minutes later, they took the lead 21v24.

The Kendal team were however not finished, and having forced an error from the kick off, the Kendal pack kept the ball tight through a number of short drives, which finally resulted in a try in the right hand corner.

Kendal gathered the kick off and Glen Weightman put it back into touch to end the game.