Carlisle extracted revenge for a recent home defeat in the league by Wigton with a comprehensive 52-19 win in the County Cup at Lowmoor Road.
With 10 experienced players missing from Wigton, who had won 40-38 at Carlisle, were simply overpowered.
Carlisle set their stall out early in the game and continually pushed Wigton off their own scrum ball. The bigger Carlisle forwards gave their Wigton counterparts a torrid time at set pieces.
The first scrum of the game was emphatically won by Carlisle, setting the scene for the set piece and the resulting penalty gave Jason Israel the opportunity for a five-metre line-out.
Carlisle grasped the opportunity to exploit the field position, with centre Jamie Blakely going over for a try converted by Israel.
Little more than five minutes later another penalty infringement gave Carlisle a line-out deep in the Wigton 22.
From the back of the resulting driving maul, lock Rory Parish peeled off and fended off several Wigton defenders to crash over for Carlisle’s second.
Although Wigton tried to get back into the game and kept the Carlisle defence honest, it was the visitors who were back on the scoreboard 10 minutes later as Rhys Callaghan finished off a backs move down the right wing, leaving Carlisle 19-0 up with the first quarter barely gone.
Again Wigton tried their best to find a way through the Carlisle defence but were simply unable to find the gaps.
Carlisle just turned up the heat and with set piece dominance, drove their way back up the park. Captain Josh Holmes was just foiled in his drive for the line, but a resulting five metre scrum, gave the visitors the platform for their fourth try and a 26-0 lead that they would take into the half time break.
There must have been some Carlisle hearts fluttering when Wigton started strongly in the second half, bagging a try from Ollie Lewis within two minutes of the re-start, to get their first points on the board. Elliot Armstrong converted.
Lewis went on to add a second try which was converted by Armstrong.
However, any thoughts of a Carlisle cave in like the last games were quickly quashed as Guy Graham bagged his second from the back of a driving pack.
The two teams then traded tries as Carlisle changed the side around, Tom Graham burrowing over from the back of a driving maul, and Wigton utilising quick tap penalties to good effect to get over through hard-working forward Richard Jackson.
It was Carlisle who finished the stronger of the two though as tries from Finn Mulholland and then Rhys Callaghan put any thoughts of a Wigton revival to bed, Carlisle running out comfortable winners 52-19.
It was a very young Wigton side with 17-year-old Bruno Studholme earning his first senior start and 18-year-old James Rooney making his debut.
Their much changed backline did manage to pose a few problems with 18-year-old winger Jordan Moore proving an elusive runner.
