Cockermouth continued their pursuit of Upper Eden and Egremont with a 27-7 home win over Whitehaven in Counties 1 Cumbria.
It was a good game in which the visitors kept at it throughout, and was played in a good spirit and well refereed.
From the start, playing into the wind, Cockermouth were dominant with efficient and effective line-outs a feature of their play.
A couple of good periods of Cockermouth pressure were ended by knock-ons.
Generally Whitehaven defended resolutely, tackling well and halting forward momentum.
It was well into the first half that eventually the unrelenting pressure from the home side paid off.
After a series of phases Cockermouth’s man of the match Ant Davies went blind from a maul to score in the corner but Ed Gate couldn’t convert.
The score motivated Whitehaven and they strung together some good phases along with some impressive handling under challenging conditions.
Eventually they found themselves deep in Cockermouth territory and moved the ball swiftly to score in the corner through scrum half Tom Blaney. It was skilfully converted by Jordan Scott.
To their credit Cockermouth came back right away and scored through centre James Sewell after a dummy and strong finish. Gate converted to leave the hosts 12-7 ahead at the break.
Whitehaven were far more creative and productive in the second half but the home side continued to show solid and determined tackling, demonstrating why they have conceded the fewest points in the competition.
Cockermouth increased their lead through Sewell, showing strength and directness to penetrate the Whitehaven defence for his second try.
Cockermouth continued to dominate the scrums, even when down to seven forwards after captain James Hunter was shown a second yellow and subsequent red card.
In a late burst of scoring Gate showed great skills to go in for a try which he converted, and then in the last minute he added a drop goal.
