Ambleside earned their first win of the season when they beat Creighton 31-17 in Counties 1 Cumbria.
It was a special day too as the newly refurbished clubhouse, pitch and floodlights and newly installed pitch barrier looked magnificent.
It has certainly made everyone in the village proud to be part of the club’s successful journey back into competitive Cumbrian rugby.
Coach Matty Kaye was delighted to be able to leave himself out of the match day squad of 20 with the bench being full of new players from the local university and players returning from injury.
From the start Ambleside played with composure and structure, continually stopping Creighton on the gain line with aggressive tackling and then composed tactical kicking to touch.
They consistently turned the big Creighton forwards round and pushed them back into their own 22 and into the corners time and time again.
Strong running from all the Ambleside forwards gave the home backs plenty of ball to spin wide and put through the hands with the Tibbert brothers linking up well and Red Marshall directing traffic since his return from playing for the Kansas Kings in the USA in the summer.
First to crash over for Ambleside was Archie Carr who then earnt himself ten minutes watching from the side lines for a bit of a slap on the opposition full-back as he was in full flight. Ambleside raised their game while only playing with 14 men and next to crash over were Greg Tibbert and Orlando Hogg.
All three tries were converted by Cameron Penistone, taking the lead out to 21-0.
Carr returned to the fray and was soon adding to the Ambleside lead.
He charged down a clearance kick on the Creighton line and flopped on the loose ball to take the score to 26-0 at half time.
The home crowd could barely believe their eyes watching Ambleside play festival champagne rugby in the glorious sunshine.
Straight from the kick off Greg Tibbert intercepted a pass in his own 22 and scorched the full length of the pitch to score in the corner.
The kick was missed but with a 31-0 lead it looked like being a long second-half for Creighton.
But Ambleside went off the boil, appearing to believe they were home and dry and this allowed Creighton to come back into the game.
The Carlisle side changed their style of play and adopted a 10-man style of rugby, sticking with inside balls from the fly half back to his forwards who continually crossed the gain line setting up rucks for their forwards to keep winning and trundling up the pitch.
In the final 30 minutes of the game they successfully did this three times to score out wide with one conversion.
It brought some respectability to the final score, which was the first time Ambleside have beaten Creighton since 2007.
The win takes Ambleside up to ninth in the league, a place and two points above Windermere who they play on Saturday in the local derby game, 3pm kick off at Dawes Meadow.
Man of the match for Ambleside was Tom Allday who had his best game for the Centurions so far.
