Three games into the new season and Carlisle are still looking to add to the point they earned in the opening fixture.
After last week’s 60-10 home defeat to impressive Regional 2 North leaders Morpeth they went down 34-19 at Stockton.
Carlisle had faced a blustery wind in the first half and boith sides had opportunities to score in the first quarter, with defences generally on top.
After Stockton had a penalty attempt blown off course they did take the lead when fielding a clearance kick and working an opening down the right wing which produced an unconverted try.
Carlisle did get up a head of steam and should have done better from a five metre scrum but at the next breakdown, they were penalised for going over the top.
When Stockton relieved pressure they produced a 50-22 kick which set-up a five-metre line-out from which the catch and drive earned the second unconverted try.
It didn’t help that soon after the re-start Carlisle had Matty Little sin-binned for a dangerous tackle and the penalty count was mounting against them.
Just before half-time Stockton exploited the extra man by finding a gap to score a third try, which was converted for a 17-0 lead at the break.
On the resumption Stockton still had the extra man advantage and continued to force the pace, eventually rewarded with a fourth try.
The conversion, which was given by the referee, was the most extraordinary anybody in attendance had witnessed.
The ball blew over just as the Stockton player kicked it, and the kick then scuttled across the ground towards the posts, before taking a wicked bounce up and over the crossbar.
If the kicker tried to repeat it a hundred times he would not be able to repeat it.
Whatever the legality of the kick, it definitely seemed to give Carlisle a wake-up call and shortly afterwards they got on the scoreboard.
Although Stockton stole the ball at a five metre , the resulting clearance kick was gathered up by Lloyd Clark, and spun left into the centres with Little having enough pace to go through the defenders and over for Carlisle’s first try which was converted by Jake Whittaker.
Carlisle’s progress was halted, however, when an attempted long kick out of defence was gathered by the Stockton fullback, He somehow stepped and jinked his way through the advancing Carlisle line, before racing down the outside unopposed for a fine solo try. The conversion gave the hosts a 31-7 lead.
On 65 minutes Carlisle hit back with a try of their own. A ten metre line-out gave Josh Holmes the opportunity to carry hard towards the Stockton try line, offloading as he was brought down to winger Tyler Callaghan to grab Carlisle’s second.
With just a few minutes on the clock Carlisle scored again when the ball was fed out to Tom Graham and he crashed over for their third try, converted by Whittaker.
Any thought that Carlisle could have secured either a try bonus or losing bonus point in the dying minutes, was dashed by the home side as another penalty infringement on their 22, gave Stockton the opportunity to kill it dead with a converted penalty.
