Kendal and Carlisle will have differing mindsets when they play their second North One West games on Saturday.
At Mint Bridge Kendal will be looking to build-on their 45-7 win at Carlisle when they host Vale of Lune.
Meanwhile Carlisle will be clearing their heads from that disastrous opening game and planning to restart their season when they are back at Warwick Road for a second home game, this time against Altrincham Kersal.
When Kendal line up against the Vale it will be their first League game at Mint Bridge for 18 months.
They will be wanting to make the most of home advantage, especially as it is the only game at Mint Bridge until mid-October as they have three away games on the spin.
Like Kendal and three other teams, Saturday’s visitors from Lancaster picked-up a bonus point win in their first game. They beat Douglas from the Isle of Man 24-20 anda close, exciting contest is in the offing.
Two other games for Kendal fans to note – on Sunday the Wasps are at Preston Grasshoppers (2-45pm ko)while the Under-18 Senior Colts host Widnes at Mint Bridge (1pm).
As for Carlisle there was a lot of honest individual endeavour but Kendal have clearly brought in a lot of experience, and were well deserved winners.
They will certainly be pushing hard for a top 4fourspot this season.
The penalty count got the better of Carlisle, and teams simply can’t allow a player of Glen Weightman’s quality the opportunity to pin you back in your own 22.
Playing 20 minutes with 14 men also didn’t help as coach Matt Shields and James Brocket spent separate times in the bin.
It left Shields with work to do on the training field this week, but certainly there’s no cause for alarm yet so early in the season.
With this being only the second full match played since Wirral in March 2020, it is to be expected that players will take time to get back into full match fitness and game awareness, especially with a lot of new faces in the side to gel together.
Lloyd Clark, Lewis Barwise, Vinnie Lung, Jonny Park, Nathan Greenhow and Kiamid Ghanbari were all appearing for the first time in the Carlisle squad.
Altrincham Kersal began the season at home to Glossop and played-out an exciting and hard-fought 27-27 draw.
