KENDAL RUGBY Club's 1st XV suffered a tragic loss in their first match of the new year against Lancashire’s Vale of Lune. With only a few points separating the two teams this was a crucial game for both sides.

This week Kendal Captain DOM MUSETTI tells the Gazette why the game slipped away from them.

A lack of concentration was what anchored us down this week and we couldn’t shake it off. This proved vital at the start of the match and Vale grasped the initiative and did not waste their time in scoring two early tries.

There are a few key points that we need to address urgently if we want to move onwards and upwards.The Westmorland Gazette:

The first being a lack of communication especially in defence which allowed Vale to slice us open early on.

Secondly, our tackle height was too high allowing ​the opposition’s powerful runners to hand us off, giving them the momentum which we struggled to stop for the rest of the game.

Thirdly we were too slow in recognising our errors which gave Vale the platform to play off and capitalise on the width of their home pitch and score further points.

But despite the shoreline, we showed some great character in the last quarter to try and salvage something from the game.

This game exposed our weaknesses and we made mistakes at critical points, which kept the oppositions points ticking over - and we will have to learn from this if we deserve to win.

All in all, it’s a derby game and we were not good enough – the team who wants it more will often win the derby. Full credit to Vale, they wanted it more than us from the moment the whistle blew and we simply didn’t react well enough.

Full match report will be out in this week's edition (10/01)