Kendal will be looking to get off the mark in Regional One North West on Saturday when they entertain Burnage at Mint Bridge.
Although Kendal only have a couple of points to show from their first three games Burnage are one of three teams below them and have collected only a single point.
While Kendal were going down 34-24 at second-in-the-table Blackburn, Saturday’s visitors were losing 29-22 at Wirral, who were scoring their first win.
Kendal, who have a few injury concerns ahead of Saturday’s game, are due at Wirral next week and a fortnight later visit rock bottom Kirkby Lonsdale.
So they do seem to have opportunities in forthcoming matches to start putting points on the League ladder.
Kirkby Lonsdale already look in desperate straits having lost all three games, scoring just 22 points and conceding 252.
On Saturday they face a stiff test at home to Blackburn.
Cumbria’s match of the day is at Bower Park as Aspatria host Penrith in the county’s first big derby of the season.
They meet-up with a common denominator, too – Middlesbrough.
Three weeks ago Aspatria went down 31-18 at home to the team from Teesside, while last Saturday it was Penrith’s turn as their unbeaten run was ended by the Boro, 38-24.
So with that as a form guide there shouldn’t be a lot in it, although Aspatria still have to open their account in Regional Two North.
They were well beaten last week at Northern, going down 52-7 and didn’t play the week before as Stockton opted not to play following the death of Her Majesty the Queen.
Rival coaches Mike Scott (Aspatria) and Dave Preston (Penrith) are good pals, and were due to go head to head last season in the semi-final of the Cumbria Cup – but the competition was abandoned.
It will be interesting to see how they shape-up when they do finally get it together on the field.
Speaking of Middlesbrough, they will be playing their third Cumbrian side in a month when they host Keswick.
Keswick won their opening game with Consett (22-10) but then went down 24-16 at Durham City before losing 43-28 at home to Percy Park on Saturday.
The Keswick tries came from Harry Vaillant, Lewis Davies and Ryan Weir. Billy Thompson kicked three penalties and two conversions.
There was some satisfaction for the Keswick club, though, in that their second beat their Percy Park counterparts 46-21.
Carlisle complete the quartet of Cumbrian clubs in the Division and they have just the one point from three opening defeats.
New coach George Graham is operating with a young squad as Carlisle are very much in a re-building process, but there have been some promising signs in the defeats so far.
On Saturday they are on the road to Consett who didn’t do too badly at home to all-conquering Morpeth last week, going down 44-20.
The week beforehand Carlisle had lost 60-10 to Morpeth who currently lead the table with maximum points, four clear of Penrith and Middlesbrough.
Next-to-bottom Carlisle, who have Aspatria below them, lost 34-19 at Stockton last week.
Graham’s men will have to address the penalty and card count if they are going to convert winnable games from losses into wins.
Gifting the opposition territory and numbers has heaped self-inflicted pressure on them in games where the slightest edge can be a significant advantage.
Despite the score-line there was not that much between the two sides, and Carlisle will rue that a distinct advantage in the scrum again, didn’t seem to give them any particular advantage they could convert into points.
Its still early days though and the head coach Graham will have been addressing these issues on the training pitch this week before the trip to Consett.
Upper Eden are already setting the pace in Counties 1 Cumbria with a 100% points return from three matches.
On Saturday they travel to Silloth who were beaten 27-0 at St. Benedict’s last week.
Egremont, currently second in the table, entertain Creighton, while the game of the day could be Penrith 2nds v Whitehaven.
Wigton travel to Millom and Workington visit Hawcoat Park.
