Keswick picked-up no points from their re-arranged home game with Northern as they lost the Regional 2 North encounter 40-12.
But the Lakes side will be looking for maximum points when relegated Carlisle visit Davidson Park on Saturday as they bid to ease their own concerns over a drop in League status.
Third placed Northern were always going to be a tough proposition for a Keswick side, not helped by the absence of three key players.
Northern started very strongly and for the first 15 minutes applied a lot of pressure which Keswick defied by strong defence. But the pressure told eventually with Northern going over for an unconverted try.
Keswick struck back, not more than a minute later with a fine individual effort by Chris Potter to tie the score at 5-5 and the rest of the first quarter was then evenly matched. It gave home supporters hope that there might be another Middlesbrough type result – but it was not to be.
Northern dominated the second and third quarters, either side of half-time to increase the score through solid play, but also helped by some Keswick missed tackles.
By the end of the third quarter Northern had increased their lead to 33-3 but to their credit the Keswick players never gave up and managed to pull back a converted try. After some good handling and interplay George Holme made the final break score under the posts.
This was only fitting to reward the hard tackling captain for an excellent performance overall.
Unfortunately for Keswick it wasn’t quite the final word as Northern were able to produce one final flourish and score another converted try.
It was another tough encounter but Keswick never lacked effort and the club moves on now to the crucial relegation battle with Carlisle at home on Saturday for a game that could decide next season’s league status.
A big home support is expected as a charity day is being run at the club on behalf of the Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood charity alongside the annual Keswick Rugby Reunion.
