Cockermouth moved three places up the North Two West table with a fine 31-17 home win over Bolton.
It proved a splendid afternoon and the clubhouse was bouncing afterwards as the seconds also played at home and all enjoyed England’s thrilling win over South Africa.
Cockermouth had got off to a great, composed start with all the players getting early hands on the ball.
Front font carries from the forwards enabled Mark Watson and Ed Gate to create a platform on which to manage the game.
It was no surprise when, after five minutes, left winger Harry Oates was given a run into the corner for the first try.
Unfortunately for the hosts this early composure and control was lost and the target of high completion rates in the green zone was not met.
As a result it was Bolton who scored next after the home forwards were penalised at a ruck. The visitors’ lively and athletic scrum-half took a quick tap and scored a very good individual try to level the score and the conversion edged Bolton ahead.
When the Wasps didn’t force too much ball, built phases and carried hard and direct they caused Bolton lots of problems.
On 25 minutes Ed Gate switched the ball back to the open side where good hands allowed Ben Irving to score. Ed Gate converted for a 12-7 lead which stayed until the break.
However the honesty of Will Gate prevented Cockermouth from going in further ahead.
After crashing through three defenders to score he thought he had grounded short, so pulled the ball back to try and score again after shouts from his team-mates. The referee then blew for a double movement.
The second-half would follow much the same pattern – an excellent start and finish, but lots for the coaching staff to work on between.
After 45 minutes the home forward showed their dominance and this time Will Gate made no mistake in crashing over.
But Bolton battled for everything, with their outside centre and scrum-half continually spurring them on.
Cockermouth had been judged to kick a penalty to touch dead and switched off at the 22. A quick kick was re-gathered and the scrum-half went down the left wing.
At the next ruck he spotted a gap on the blindside and was off again to score a great try to cut the gap to 17-12.
But Cockermouth bounced back. The home crowd like nothing more than seeing prop Adam Brough on a gallop and he didn’t disappoint from 50 metres out.
He burst through the line and then rounded the cover defenders with a little shimmy, a hand-off and the pace of a back for a brilliant try converted by Ed Gate.
At this point the Wasps should have gone on to finish the game at a canter but all credit to Bolton they were on to all the home team’s mistakes in a flash.
They scored next through their forwards and cut the gap to just seven points, putting home fans on edge.
A big rollicking by John Irving fired-up the hosts into action and a brilliant line break by Ed Gate was followed-up by Liam McAvoy to score under the posts. Ed Gate converted.
The call went up to finish on a high and end with a try. Excellent carries by Hetherington, Gate and Wilson opened up space for full-back Johnny Creighton to break down the right side. The last support was from John Irving but the pass was ruled forward denying a fine end to the game.
