After a cracking Cumbrian derby which ended all square Kendal and Penrith have to consider different options on Saturday.
Kendal, who would be most disappointed with the 12-12 draw against their county rivals in Regional 1 North West, are on the road to Newport (Salop) while Penrith entertain bottom side Birkenhead Park.
League newcomers Newport have had a decent enough start and are just ahead of Penrith and Kendal in the League table.
They have 27 points from their ten games which puts them seventh, three ahead of Penrith (8th) and six in front of Kendal (9th).
Penrith will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of improving their points differential against a Birkenhead Park side who have only one point to their name, losing all ten games and conceding 500 points in the process.
In these sort of games teams have to concentrate on doing the job in hand and feel sorry for the opposition afterwards. In social rugby it might be a little different!
There’s a Cumbrian derby in Regional 2 North where Aspatria entertain Upper Eden with both sides needing points to improve their relative positions.
Each will have had genuine aspirations of finishing comfortably in the top half of the table so there’s work to do for both of them.
Keswick will expect to make progress up the table when they entertain Guisborough, who are next to bottom, although Garry Holmes, coach at Davidson Park will have noted the opposition ran Aspatria close last week.
But Keswick have been putting up some good efforts in defeat recently – being ahead going into the last quarter against the top two sides Middlesbrough and Northern.
Carlisle have a tough task ahead when they travel to West Hartlepool who are very much in the title mix – only three behind second-placed Middlesbrough and seven in arrears of leaders Northern.
Defences certainly weren’t on top last week when Carlisle lost 43-39 to Consett at Warwick Road.
Carlisle scored tries through Robbie James, Josh Holmes, Jonathan Park, Vince Lung and Lloyd Clark. James converted four of the five and added two penalties.
Kirkby Lonsdale, bottom of the table with just the one win, host Durham City who have won six and drawn one of their ten League games to sit a competitive fifth in the table.
There’s a three-way North Federation referee exchange this week with Cumbria refs Martin Maughan and Jim Donald in Northumberland; Durham referees in Cumbria and Northumberland referees in Durham.
Andy Black has Aspatria v Upper Eden while Adam Morrison takes on Keswick v Guisborough.
Over in Northumberland Martin Maughan officiates at Morpeth v Northern while Jim Donald does Ponteland v Hartlepool.
Higher up the pyramid Cumbrian referee Andy Shaw has another top of table clash in league 5 between Rossendale and Anselmians.
There again some crucial games in Counties 1 Cumbria, particularly Cockermouth v Egremont (Andy Flisher) where both need the points to keep up with the clubs above them.
Second in the table Penrith 2nds face a tricky away game at Whitehaven (Mike Firby) as do St Benedict’s at Hawcoat Park (Dan Shovelton).
The other games are: Creighton v Keswick 2nds (Mike Pate)and Workington v Millom (Roy Hyslop).
On Sunday there are Under17/18 League games with Cockermouth/Keswick Ospreys at home, hoping to carry on from winning their County Cup semi-final last week at Penrith.
They will face Egremont in the final after they beat Carlisle in the other semi-final.
On Sunday the Ospreys will play Darlington at Keswick (1pm, Martin Denvir) while Penrith host Stockton (1.30pm, Ben King).
Playing Saturday (2pm) with Martin Plummer officiating Carlisle tackle Morpeth in an Under-18s game.
