Counties 1 Cumbria leaders Upper Eden celebrated their recent Cumbria Sports Award as team of the year with a 52-0 win at Creighton.
The champions and League leaders had to make several changes to the pack and introduced three members of the second team.
Eden started playing up the slope and into the strong wind with heavy conditions underfoot which were to be a factor as the game progressed.
After a sloppy start Eden started to dominate the game and winger Kyle Glasson put them into several try-scoring positions. A lack patience saw dropped ball and they could just not break the last line of defence.
However Eden’s dominance in the contact/ruck area began to wear-down Creighton and holes eventually began to appear. From an excellent flowing backs move Richard Addison went over for Eden’s opening try which Dan Todd converted.
Confidence began to grow with some excellent running and support play with Rupert Civil in particular punching big holes in Creighton’s defence.
Eventually on 30 minutes Todd arrived in support of a flowing move to crash over and he also added the conversion.
From the re-start Eden had Creighton camped on their own line and only some heroic defence by the Creighton full-back Keenan Foster prevented another score but in doing so received a serious ankle injury and had to be carried off.
Creighton gamely insisted on running the ball back at their visitors but the Eden defence was solid.
The Eden second row of Brad Hall and Rob Dent were dominating the line-outs and causing disruption on Creighton’s ball.
Their third try came from an excellent flowing move with the ball going through many pairs of hands before Will Birbeck cut a great line to score and Todd again converted.
Eden continued to press and again strong running from Civil put Glasson in for Eden’s fourth try for a 26-0 lead at half-time.
With the strong wind behind them in the second-half Eden took advantage and pushed Creighton back deep into their own half.
From a line-out quick ball from Addison set-up his backs perfectly for Joss Warren to crash over for the fifth try which Todd converted.
Creighton were now beginning to fade and fall off tackles as relentless pressure had them on the back foot again.
A barn-storming run from Matty Sanderson saw him send in Warren for his second try and Todd’s conversion made it 40-0.
Before the end Warren completed his hat-trick and the impressive Birbeck got his second.
