Ponteland made their first visit to Bower Park and they can count themselves unlucky that it coincided with Aspatria playing some of their best rugby of the season.
The Black Reds rattled in five tries before halftime and a further six in the second-half to run out 71-5 winners.
Three of those tries came in the final ten minutes when Ponteland’s defensive effort finally collapsed.
The win keeps Aspatria in fifth place which may be good enough for promotion. There is now only one game to go but this is a difficult trip to Sunderland. Any slip-up and West Hartlepool are waiting to pounce, only two points adrift of the Cumbrians.
Aspatria began the game at a breath-taking pace and the first 10 minutes was concentrated in the Ponteland half. Several try scoring opportunities were generated but not taken.
A still fresh Ponteland defended with enthusiasm but home scores seemed inevitable.
The dam burst on 15 minutes with a score from centre Ryan Scott who throughout the game was involved in most of Aspatria’s attacking play.
In the build-up to the try, number eight Gary Hodgson was influential in creating pressure down the right flank but Scott still had work to do before he shrugged off the last defender and dotted down.
Near enough from the restart an individual piece of class from Josh Watson saw him come into possession around the 22 and he then reversed his curving run to wrong-foot the defence and go under the posts.
The response from Ponteland was commendable. With their first serious attack after 20 minutes they were on the scoreboard.
A penalty was rewarded with a five metre line-out. This was well controlled and Aspatria could do little to halt progress as the ball was mauled over the line.
The mini comeback did not last. On 25 minutes precision passing along the backline left Matthew Irving in the clear to dot down near the corner flag.
The bonus point try was posted on 30 minutes with prop Dan Curtis being the last man in a solid forward effort that took play up close to the Ponteland line.
On the stroke of half-time a fifth try put the end result beyond doubt.
This was Scott’s second of the day and was largely a solo effort. He ran at the defence, shifting both left and right, and although defenders were in position his mazy run created doubt in their minds and before they could respond he was through and under the posts for a 33-5 half-time lead.
From the re-start Aspatria regained possession and with only two minutes on the clock Scott was in for a hat-trick.
This was a simpler effort than his earlier scores, as he was just the man taking advantage of good work by his team-mates.
Shortly afterwards Aspatria lost Hodgson to a yellow card and this kick- started Ponteland’s best spell of the game with a lengthy assault on the Aspatria try line.
Their efforts in this period were deserving of a consolation score but it was just not their day and eventually Aspatria engineered an escape downfield.
Aspatria started the final quarter of the game with a penalty into the corner. The line-out was perfect and the ball presentation to Matthew Atkinson could not have been better, providing him with sufficient momentum to crash over.
Aspatria were now doing serious damage to the Ponteland defensive structure.
An attack down the right seemed to be coming to an end but to escape the inevitable tackle into touch a cross kick was launched.
It seemed safe enough but Watson had read the play and was not only able to compete in the air but came down with the ball and had an unopposed run to the sticks.
The final ten minutes must have seemed much longer to Ponteland. They could only watch Aspatria go into over-drive and post a further three tries before the longed-for final whistle.
The first of these was a deserved reward for hard-working second row Chris Graham.
The second came from the re-start and near enough down the full length of the pitch. It was a flowing move, involving many hands but the final take came from back row man, Cameron Steele. With the final play of the game try number11 was scored by the ever-willing Joe Beaty who was able to coast through some very tired defenders to end the game.
