Four-try victory puts one hand on title (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Four-try victory puts one hand on title

10:03am Friday 4th April 2008 in Sport By Dennis Aris

KENDAL all but secured the crown of North One League Champions with their victory over Birkenhead Park on Saturday - they can now only be denied if they lose their two remaining fixtures and Huddersfield win both of theirs with an overall points margin of 127 points better than Kendal.

After two days of heavy rain, which was still coming down as the players ran on to the pitch, the conditions for open, running rugby were far from ideal.

For the first 15 minutes both sets of forwards tested each other and the referee with persistent infringements. The result was a yellow card being shown to the Birkenhead Park hooker after which game settled down.

From the penalty awarded to Kendal, when the hooker was sin-binned, stand-off Dan Stephens (returning to the side after injury) kicked the ball to touch deep into the Birkenhead 22. The lineout throw was caught by the impressive Gareth Gore and the now familiar driving maul was set in motion for hooker Duncan Green to be driven over the try line.

Stephens missed with the difficult conversion from close to the touchline and, with conditions under foot being so slippery, none of Kendal's four tries were converted.

To their credit, both sides tried to play rugby in the inclement weather with Kendal at times throwing wild passes with gay abandon, but there were no further scores during the first half.

Birkenhead Park 7

Kendal 20

Kendal scored early in the second period to double their lead.

A tremendous 45-metre driving maul from a lineout on halfway earned Kendal a five-metre scrum from which No.8 Mark Wilson burst off the back to score.

Thirteen minutes later Kendal scored their third try. A deft chip by Stephens across the Birkenhead Park 22 was chased hard by winger John Ladell who used his strength and the conditions to great effect when he slid in to gather the ball and touch down over the try line.

With the final ten minutes approaching Dan Stephens was penalised and deemed worthy of a yellow card by the referee.

Birkenhead took full advantage of their extra man, right-winger Andrew Trotter running a brilliant angle at pace to burst through the Kendal defence and score a converted try beside the posts.

Kendal quickly regrouped and replied in the best possible fashion - with their fourth try.

The forwards drove the ball up field aided by a galloping run by Gore to take the ball close to the Birkenhead try line and after a couple of rucks Mark Wilson was driven over for his second try of the game and wrap up Kendal's 20th league victory of the season.