Kendal crashed to a 55-5 defeat in their big North One West game at Manchester – which had pitted third against second.
But the Cumbrians were hampered by injuries and unavailabilities with Lewis Kincart, Glen Weightman, Danny Barker, Dan Lowther, Dan Reid and Matt Houghton all missing out.
Strangely they opted to go without a fit third replacement on the bench, even though several second teamers were at the game.
Kendal, who trailed 26-5 at the break, weren’t helped by having James Gough and Ben Dixon yellow-carded at different stages of the first-half so operated with 14 men for 20 minutes.
Manchester scored their first try after seven minutes and although the second didn’t arrive until the 20-minute mark, Kendal had hardly got out of their own half.
The home side simply moved the ball left and some feeble Kendal tackling allowed them to add the second converted try.
Kendal still had just 14 men with Gough still of the field when they scored their try.
A penalty gave them a line-out which was driven to the line for Steve Nelson to eventually break off and score.
This proved to be their best little spell and with Dixon in the bin this time they broke well from their own half. Dan Shorrock was just unable to gather a pass when he only had one defender to beat.
From there, though, Manchester scored two more tries before the break to look extremely comfortable at the change-over.
It took only four minutes for Manchester to extend their lead when good handling and excellent support play got them a fifth try.
A clever kick for the corner was followed and picked-up to deliver the next try on 55 minutes.
In the end Manchester finished with nine tries, five of which were converted by Doug Day while Charlie Greene led the try-scoring with four touchdowns.
Kendal will welcome a fortnight’s break but it doesn’t get any easier as runaway leaders Stockport are next up at Mint Bridge on Saturday, March 26.
