Wigton enjoyed themselves in the sunshine at Lowmoor Road as they opened the league campaign with a convincing 64-10 win against Hawcoat Park.
The first of ten tries was scored by Cory Bouch following good work by Mike Bewley who supported the ball and provided an excellent off-load to Bouch to go under the posts. Elliot Armstrong added the conversion.
From a scrum penalty Wigton went with a quick tap and after several off-loads Jonny Dodd crashed over with Armstrong converting and only five minutes on the clock.
With the scrum solid against a much heavier pack, Wigton worked a blindside move and a great break by birthday boy Robbie Pattinson saw Richard Jackson in support to crash over. Armstrong converted.
Hawcoat Park then hit back with a line-out catch and drive which brought them an unconverted try.
The visitors then had a player sent to the sin bin for persistent high tackles and Wigton took full advantage. From the resulting penalty they tapped and moved the ball through several phases before Will Wilson crashed over to leave the score 26-5 at half time.
From the re-start Wigton got straight into it and finding Matty Harrison in space he was able to score a converted try.
They proceeded to score further tries through the impressive James Paisley (2), the evergreen Fergus Ledingham, Bewley and Dodd, with Armstrong converting three of them.
Hawcoat Park scored a nice try in the left hand corner off a well worked scrum move and the game then meandered for the last 15 minutes as the heat took its toll, wuth mistakes happening more often as fatigue set in.
It was a positive start to the new season for Wigton but they have plenty to work on to improve for the challenges ahead, beginning this Friday night with a trip to play Keswick 2nds who had opened with a 29-25 home win over Millom.
