Egremont continued their promising start to the season with a 43-5 home win against Creighton.
The Bleach Green side promise to make it a three-way battle for the Counties 1 Cumbria title instead of just a two-horse race between Cockermouth and Upper Eden.
Although it seemed a comprehensive victory for Egremont there were some good moments for Creighton, particularly a 20 minute spell at the start of the second-half.
Creighton dominated, particularly at the scrum where good yards were made consistently. Unfortunately for the visitors several opportunities were wasted due to lack of patience or by taking the wrong option.
The visitors had got off to the worst possible start by conceding an unconverted try in the first few minutes.
A well-received Creighton kick-off allowed strong carries from the Egremont forwards which provided fast ball for young scrum-half Jack Pae to feed centre Fraser McNee.
He danced through the Creighton back line to create a two on one with the full-back which was executed perfectly. McNee drew the man before sending Dobson over in the corner.
The visitors soon hit back following a string of penalties in their favour. From five metres out, a well-executed line-out and driving maul saw hooker Joel Davidson touch down to level the scores after eight minutes.
Knock-ons and missed tackles by Creighton were then punished as Egremont’s impressive backs scored three converted tries to make the half time score 26-5.
Pae crossed from the base of a scrum and McNee broke through off a well-worked scrum move.
The final try of the half came from a turn-over at a line-out from returning second-rower Ben Brock. He stole the ball at the line-out which allowed Graham Temple to go in for the try which Dane Richardson converted.
The second-half started with Creighton on top and Egremont having to defend extremely hard to keep them out.
It was finally a big tackle from Fraser to force a Creighton forward to knock-on which allowed Egremont to get on the front foot again.
After so much defending Egremont were pleased to get the ball back from the line-out allowing centre Callum Aitken to chance to kick in behind the Creighton defence where speedster Nathan Preston collected the ball and scored in the corner, with Richardson converting.
From the kick-off Egremont moved the ball wide again to find more space which allowed winger Sam Agnew to go 50 metres up-field before being well-tackled. Then some quick thinking from Aitken with a chip over the top allowed Preston to gather and go over under the sticks for Richardson to convert.
Creighton then had another good spell of possession forcing Egremont to defend their line hard and knock back the Creighton forwards.
Some ill discipline allowed Egremont to turn the ball over on their own 22 which saw Albert McKay having the room to attack and provide Preston with the pass which sent him in for his hat-trick try, converted by Richardson.
In all it was a good game for both sides despite the seemingly one-sided score-line. It was Egremont who were more clinical when they had the opportunities to finish.
