A late surge allowed Kendal to collect a third win in North One West, despite several injury disruptions during their game at Altrincham Kersal.
It was their closest success so far -25-22 – but injuries during the game left them with no more replacements and several players who were struggling but manfully carried on.
Kendal had taken an early lead after Chris Park was stopped with a high tackle and Glen Weightman landed the penalty on two minutes.
Altrincham Kersal hit back immediately and were ahead two minutes later when Kendal lost a line-out, for an Altrincham lock to open up the defence and score.The conversion was accurate.
Altrincham dominated so that Kendal were defending for long periods and when they did manage to break the stranglehold the fluency and creation of the two previous games was not evident.
Prop Hugh Davies limped off after 20 minutes, the first of the casualties to succumb and he was replaced by Tom Moulton. Ominously Reece Tomlinson was hurt soon afterwards but stayed on after treatment.
Late in the half Dan Shorrock was rather harshly penalised for not releasing the ball in a tap tackle and the resultant kick at goal helped the hosts into a 10-3 lead at the break.
There was another injury concern for the second-half, though, as Matt Houghton was unable to re-start and Liam Hayton joined the action.
Kendal re-started well and when they moved the ball to the right Danny Barker made ground, before finding Ben Dixon in support and he got his pass away for Alistair Thompson to score an unconverted try.
But the injury woes were mounting as Tomlinson finally had to concede and retire, and with no one left on the bench Davies hobbled back on.
On the hour Kendal got themselves ahead. The referee had played a good advantage after a high tackle on Thompson and a huge gap was spotted by Steve Nelson who stormed through it to score with Park adding the extras.,
Altrincham came back and drove over for an unconverted try to level the score only for Kendal’s not so musical chairs to continue as Moulton was forced off with injury and a not fully fit Houghton returned.
Kendal quickly re-gained the lead when Park took on a difficult penalty and landed it.
Back came Altrincham by turning over re-start ball and moved it wide to score in the corner and after taking what seemed an age the kicker landed a fine touchline conversion.
With under ten minutes left Kendal trailed 22-18 and in a calculated gamble the unfit Tomlinson answered the call by returning, but in place of Dan Greenwood rather than one of the other injured players.
After Tomlinson had set-up a good attacking position, Kendal lost ground by conceding a penalty. However, on the counter attack Park was felled by a high tackle which resulted in a yellow card for the offender.
Rather than go for touch Weightman put in a long kick to the left wing for Dixon to chase. The ball bounced badly for him, but all’s well that ends well!
He managed to gather it and found Shorrock backing-up. Although he was stopped the ball was moved right and Thompson had a clear run to the line. Park converted for a 25-22 lead with two minutes left.
Kersal’s efforts to get control of the ball in the time that remained saw them offend three times and Kendal did enough to hold on for a gritty victory.
