Rugby - Students upstage Kendal's end-of-term plus-marks (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Rugby - Students upstage Kendal's end-of-term plus-marks

11:11am Thursday 12th May 2011 in Sport

Kendal 6, Loughborough Students 30 THE VISIT of promotion-hungry Loughborough for the final home match had the potential to spoil Kendal's ambition of presenting a glowing end-of-term report to supporters.

Restricting the Students to three tries, however, was no mean achievement and there was plenty of quality from Gareth Gore's band of brothers to suggest they can remain competitive at National League level come next autumn.

Loughborough were beefy to a man - the right winger looked two widths of Dan Lowther - and offered a stern examination.

And Kendal had plenty of cramming to do, going about business mob-handed in some of the best unflinching tackling seen from the side this season.

Kendal retained the belief they could match the England wanabees and for the first half the faithful watching clung to a hopeful feeling it could just be their day.

Try-scoring chances remained scarce for both sides before the interval but when they arrived, Kendal could not snap them up.

Instead they turned round still in touch at 13-6 down only to pay for their mistakes the longer the match wore on.

Fly-half Mark Ireland rewarded Kendal’s strong start and admirable pressure as he and opposite number Matt Keville swapped a couple of penalties to make it 6-6 after 20 minutes.

Kendal forced the Students back into their 22 and they did not like it, twice offending in striking distance of Ireland's boot.

It was typical of Kendal's luck that they were on the attack when losing the ball in contact. Loughborough picked up and flanker Fred Silcock strode up the short side from a ruck 25-metre out for an easy run-in.

Kendal hit back with scrum-half Lucian Morosan dummying his way through from a lineout before No8 Joe Mallinson had a cut at the line but the defence swallowed up the move.

Loughborough grew ragged, kicking out on the full and having prop Ryan Bowyer sinbinned for preventing quick release, though Ireland slanted the angled penalty wide and then slipped as he tried another attempt just before the break.