KENDAL RUFC were soundly beaten 33-7 at home to Hull on Saturday.

Hull visited Mintbridge with the play-off place in the North Premier almost secure, and the proved too strong for Kendal.

Matt Charters had been injured at Wirral last weekend, so Alistair Thompson came in to replace him.

Hull started well and there was an early blow for Kendal with Jacob Sutton being forced off after just two minutes with an injury, with Craig Wilson replacing him.

Hull opened the scoring a minute later. Strong running, good support play, and fast offloading saw the Kendal defence breached several times, and while the cover managed to repel a number of breaks, the ball was recycled and moved back to the left, where Stephen Hiehetah drove through some tackles and continued for a try.

Kendal quickly had an opportunity to reduce the gap 5-0 gap. The Hull back line was caught offside and when the referee played advantage, Ben Leacock made a powerful break down the left. When the move came to nothing, the referee brought play back for the penalty, but the kick dropped short.

Hull’s second try came after a quarter of an hour. Full back Lee Birch made a break down the left wing, and seemed to be sure to score, but Kris Bratton got back to drag him down. The ball was quickly moved to the other side of field where right wing Michael Adlard was able to go over unopposed. Outside half Stephen Johnson added the conversion to make it 12-0.

Kendal were having problems in the scrum, and after 25 minutes a scrum exploded into an exchange of views between the two packs. Kendal hooker Garry Holmes and Hull prop Benjamin Boothman were singled out, and both received yellow cards.

As the game restarted with a scrum, Ross Mckay was forced to go off, to allow Jack Lashley to come into the front row. With the first choice in the bin, and the second choice having been forced off injured, Lashley became a stand in hooker.

Five minutes later and Hull added their third try. Good work down the left saw the ball recycled and moved right, where fast footwork from right wing Adlard outpaced the Kendal defence to allow him to score his second try, with Johnson again adding the conversion.

The half ended with a string of Hull scrums on the Kendal line, with Kendal being penalised for the front row being driven up as Hull went for the line. Finally, at the third attempt, the referee awarded a penalty try, which made the half time score 26-0 to the visitors.

Kendal started the second half fired up, and spent most of the first quarter of an hour in the Hull half, but the Hull defence was a good as their attack, and there were few opportunities. Chris Downham was often coming up against a brick ball as he tried to open up the defence.

Matthew Kaye took a number of penalties quickly, but after making ground, was often isolated from any support.

After weathering the storm, Hull worked their way to the other end of the field, and more good build up work saw Adlard go over for his third try, again converted by Johnson and Hull were 33-0 ahead.

Kendal had another good spell in the Hull half, and their hard work was finally rewarded as the game came to the end of normal time. Dini Noyo managed to find a way to weave through the Hull defence to score, with Chris Park adding the conversion.

The referee did not play any added time, and the score proved to be the final action of the game with the final result 33-7.

For a second time this season, the Kendal team threw everything at a Hull team, who were far from at their best, but still romped to a comfortable win.