It’s been a challenging season for Workington Zebras and they tasted their eighth defeat of the season, going down 64-7 to Wigton at The Ellis.
But the Wigton view was that they had to work much harder for the win in this Counties 1 Cumbria fixture than the score suggests.
A youthful Wigton side had an average age of 23 and in a physical opening quarter the home side tried to steamroll over the visitors. But their defence was good and every opportunity they had the ball was moved wide to try and find space.
The first score came after a spell of defending and when Wigton won a turn-over, scrum-half Ali Gaitskill put a chip over the home defence and followed-up to notch an unconverted try.
The second try followed good phases which stretched the Zebras defence, allowing the fast-improving Jordan Moore to go over in the corner.
As the half wore on more space was opening-up on the big pitch and Matty Harrison scored a brace of tries for the visitors.
In between a Zebras catch and drive saw David Todhunter claim the Zebras’ try to reward their hard-working pack. Kieran Barr added the conversion.
At half-time Wigton made changes and awarded a senior debut to a Colt, Euan Fletcher who had a very impressive game, scoing a hat-trick with his pace and evasion skills very evident.
In the second-half Wigton had the majority of the possession and further tries were scored by Billy Stafford, Cory Bouch and Harrison who was also completing a hat-trick.
Conversions were shared between Elliot Armstrong (4) and Rocco Okesene (2).
The final score was harsh on a hard-working Zebras team who battled to the final whistle. It was their heaviest defeat of the campaign so far and keeps them 12th in Cumbria 1 – level on points with Windermere, but only two points clear of bottom club Keswick 2nds.
Wigton are fourth in the table, just five points behind second-placed St. Benedict’s with Carlisle clear at the top.
