Wigton overcame a tough physical Millom team to maintain their 100% record at the top of Cumbria 1 with a 31-12 victory.
Playing into a strong wind, Wigton moved the ball wide at every opportunity, but handling errors allowed Millom to punish them and use the wind intelligently to pin them back.
Millom took the lead through a successful penalty from 30 metres out when Wigton were penalised at the ruck. They stretched the lead to 0-6 with another penalty kick which hit the post and crossbar before dropping over.
A feature of the game was Wigton trying to stretch the Millom defence and put them under pressure, this resulted in several penalties awarded to the Greens which they took quickly.
Following one of these young full-back James Paisley found a gap and raced over under the sticks for Elliot Armstrong to convert and give Wigton a narrow 7-6 lead.
Millom kept using the wind well and were successful with two other long-range penalties to lead 12-7 until two minutes before half-time when a Millom player was shown a yellow card.
Wigton ran the penalty and hard-working second row Ryan Armstrong scored in the corner to leave the scores tied 12-12 at half-time which represented a good effort from The Greens playing into the wind.
Wigton started the second half brightly with Cory Bouch gaining them field position with some good kicking and from this area of the field they put together several phases.
Rocco Okesene marked his return with a try with Armstrong converted and from the kick-off the Millom player, returning from his yellow card was immediately penalised for a dangerous late hit which left the referee no option but to issue a red card, reducing them to 14 for the rest of the game.
From the penalty Wigton won the line-out and worked through their patterns before Elliot Armstrong was put into space and he crashed over before converting his own try to give the Greens breathing space for the first time in the game at 24-12.
Millom kept going and they had several strong ball carriers who would make inroads before their support would run out and Wigton win the turnover.
From a turnover Wigton quickly transitioned into attack and handled the ball wide, stretching the Millom defence through several phases before good hands from Josh Nicholson put young winger Jordan Moore away. He stepped the cover defence to go in under the posts to leave Armstrong with a simple conversion.
Overall this was a good test for the home side as Millom were physical and provided a stiff challenge, so with several late cry-offs and unavailabilities to still come away with a five-point win was a credit to this young side.
Bensons Accountants have sponsored the new match shirts and they chose 19-year-old prop Mikey Dodd as MOM, who really dug in at scrum time against much bigger opposition.
