KENDAL scored four unanswered tries on Saturday to earn a 22-0 victory against Morley at Mintbridge.

Visitors Morley had had a number of good recent results, despite sitting in the bottom three, and would have targeted the game as one they needed to win to keep alive hopes of escaping relegation.

They started well, but Kendal had the better of the opening exchanges, keeping their visitors in their own half but had few opportunities of their own to score. Morley were on top at the scrum, winning a number of penalties on their own put in, but Ben Dixon managed to steal a number of Morley throws at the lineout.

After a quarter of an hour, Glen Weightman was injured after taking a Morley kick. He appeared to be tackled before reaching the ground, but the referee took no action. Chris Park came on and went to fullback, with Nathan Wooff moving to outside half.

Kendal had further injury problems with Jack Lashley being ready to come on for Ross Mckay, although he was not needed at that point, Lashley was shortly on for Dom Musetti. He was soon finding gaps and made a number of runs into space, but the Morley defence regrouped, and the attacks came to nothing.

Good work by Lashley in midfield set up the opening score. The ball was moved to Kris Bratton who had already had a number of good runs, but had been well marshalled by the Morley defence and had not been able to get passes away. This time he bounced off a number of tacklers, on a trademark weaving run to the line. Chris Park added the conversion and Kendal were 7-0 ahead.

Ross McKay finally left the field, and with Robbie Collinson the other forward substitute, he went to hooker, with Garry Holmes moving to No.8, and Chris Downham into the second row.

As the half came to an end, Kendal stepped up a gear and Morley conceded a penalty just inside their half. Park was given the long range kick, which hit the cross bar and bouncing back into play, and the half time score remained 7-0.

The second half continued in the same way, with play mostly taking place between the two twenty twos.

The second try came after twenty minutes of the half when Kendal were penalised for a technical office at the breakdown when on the attack. The Morley penalty failed to make touch, Park gathered and returned a kick, which found a Morley forward near halfway, who knocked on. Kendal gathered the ball which was quickly moved to the wing where Brett Ashley had a clear run to the line, and just managed to outpace the Morley defence to score in the corner.

Morley appeared to be tiring, and Nathan Wooff stretched them with a number of long low kicks which were chased by the Kendal backline, with Danny Barker making a number of crunching tackles to force Morley into handling errors, to keep Kendal on the attack.

The breakthrough finally came with six minutes to play. From a scrum in mid-field the ball was moved left, with Bratton doing the rest to get his second try to make it 17-0.

Kendal were quickly back on the attack looking for the fourth try for the bonus point. It came with two minutes of normal time to play with Musetti finishing off good work by the team in the Morley twenty two, rampaging through a gap to touch down.