Cumbria collected their second win of the County Championship, 43-14 against Warwickshire but it wasn’t enough to make progress in the competition.
Staffordshire edged a tight game against the East Midlands 24-22 to earn qualification for the knock-out stage.
Cumbria’s only defeat of the season had come at home to Staffordshire – 31-24 – so from a county perspective it has been a very creditable campaign following their step up from the last Championship two years ago.
Kevin O’Neill, chairman of Club Cumbria said: “It was a great performance with some really good tries and a lot of excellent rugby. We were spot on in every department and everybody played their part.
“We learnt some time ago that the quality of the bench is important in county rugby and we believe we had a very strong set of replacements for when they had to come on and get right into the game.
“It looked as one time as though we were going to do it. We were on course to win by 25 points and our main rivals Staffordshire were in a tight, low-scoring game with East Midlands.
“In the end Staffordshire just scraped the win which was enough to send them to Twickenham and we just missed out, but the way we have performed this season after being promoted is hugely encouraging.
“A total of 14 players made their county debuts and did well which is only good for the future.
“In the end, though, it was probably the RFU’s decision to insist Kendal played Douglas when we opened the Championship against Staffordshire that cost us.
“We had seven Kendal players in the squad for selection but when the Douglas game was confirmed we couldn’t include them. When Kendal’s game was cancelled on the Friday we could have brought some of them in but we remained loyal to the lads who had been selected on the Wednesday. I think we made the right decision but needn’t have been put in that position.”
Cumbria led 17-0 at half-time and built on that in the second-half although Warwickshire did get in for two converted tries.
Ben Dixon of Kendal had started the ball rolling on 12 minutes and his Mint Bridge team-mate Robbie Collinson followed him over on 27 minutes. In first-half stoppage time James Telford of Carlisle went in for the third try and this time Glen Weightman converted.
Two tries in the first eight minutes of the second half took the game away from Warwickshire with Steve Nelson (Kendal) and Adam Howe (Penrith) both crossing and Weightman converting.
Although Warwickshire did score twice Cumbria still had more tries in them and they came from Dixon again on 68 minutes and probably the best of the lot three minutes later from Kirkby Lonsdale’s Harry Huddleston.
