Aspatria are doing it tough at the minute with a lot of battered and bruised bodies as well as people missing with injuries.
It hasn’t got any better, either, with two more injuries at Durham City on Saturday where the Black Reds lost 46-12.
Following the Northern game and the loss of two players with season ending injuries, another two were lost with hopefully less serious injuries last week against Consett.
The most recent game at Durham saw the squad hit again with winger Euan Nicholson limping off with what was later confirmed on Sunday evening as a broken ankle whilst Tom Gardner withdrew in the first half with a shoulder injury.
That said, Saturday was one of those games where the Black Reds met a confident Durham City side who thoroughly deserved their victory on the day.
It started poorly for the away side where an early try for the home side was compounded by allowing the resulting kick-off to be caught, and ran up field almost unopposed for 14:0 within the opening five minutes.
Shell shocked, Aspatria started to defend their line with some vigour and finally got some possession on the 30 minute mark. The pack, once again dominating the scrum, were able to guide number eight Stuart Creighton over the line for an unconverted score.
The half time score would be 22-5 to the home side but Aspatria had also fallen foul of some close calls in the first half which would continue in the second.
On the attack after the re-start an Aspatria pass was intercepted and ran 80 meters up the field for a score while a second try would be scored after some good controlled play by the forwards.
Aspatria hit back after stand off Jack Clegg was stopped with a high tackle. Scrum half Alex Barton went quickly from the tap and nipped under the sticks for a converted score.
The remainder of the half saw Durham pressing with their strong runners and picking up a couple of additional tries to see them comfortably home.
Several of the tries came from Aspatria errors where ball or ground was lost trying to run the ball from deep to get back in the game.
In short, it was one of those days where the team underperformed and not much went right in the 80 minutes.
As always, the effort was there, with stand out performances coming from Chris Graham and Arron Sullivan in the pack while veteran Heinie Jonker rolled back the years with a cameo appearance from the bench with some strong running.
