BLACKBURN exacted their revenge as they won 30-10 against a depleted Kirkby Lonsdale side.

While Kirkby had comfortably won the reverse fixture in October, it was the Lancastrians who showed a ruthless streak as they took advantage of the visitors being without a number of players due to unavailability and injuries.

Player coach Scott Armstrong will be a big miss for the side and he faces 10 weeks on the sidelines following the Macclesfield game.

Alex Briggs started at prop and coach Gareth Gore donned playing kit to turn out in the second row, while an untried centre pairing of Harry Ralston and Rhys Gealy forced flanker Stu Storey to cover Ralston on the right wing and the development squad’s Ryan Allwood to get an outing on the other wing.

Kirkby started brightly and were 3-0 ahead after four minutes when Mike Fearon sent his penalty kick into the wind and between the posts.

However, the game soon swung Burn’s way, and while Kirkby had their moments, they were unable to cope with the home side’s clever use of the strong wind to run in four tries to turn around 25-3 ahead.

Kirkby would have been hoping to similarly exploit the weather conditions in the second half, but they were hampered in their pursuit of a way back into the game when they lost flanker Josh Sheridan to injury.

Will Brown swapped the replacements’ bench for the right wing, with Storey moving in to replace Sheridan at number seven.

It summed up Kirkby’s day and indicated the strength of the wind when, from near his own posts, full back Chris Ramwell put in a kick downfield in an effort to get play down the other end. It looked good bouncing between the halfway line and the Burn 22, but with defenders and attackers in hot pursuit, it rolled on and on downwind and died just over the dead ball line.

With the ball back from where it was kicked, a scrum drive was held and, after several phases, a large prop ran through to score their fifth try to extend the lead to 30-3 with half an hour to play.

Kirkby did reduce the deficit to 20 points when experienced second row Gore smashed his way over for Kirby’s only try of the afternoon. Fearon was successful with his difficult conversion attempt from the touchline.

Kirkby had a great opportunity to close the gap even further when Fearon opened up the home defence with an angled run, but his pass when in a promising position was judged to have gone forward.

Despite the heavy defeat, Kirkby Lonsdale remain comfortably in mid-table with an important home game coming up against Alnwick on Saturday.