Vale of Lune 39 - 10 Kirkby Lonsdale

THE unavailability of five key players saw a depleted Kirkby Lonsdale side beaten by local rivals Vale of Lune in their opening North One West fixture on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Powderhouse Lane.

In front of one of the largest crowds in recent seasons, young Vale number nine Billy Swarbrick followed in the illustrious footsteps of grandfather Fred and dad Steve who wore the first team cherry and white jersey.

Missing for Kirkby was injured Tim Groves and Ben Walker while Stuart Storey, Tom Pickthall and Jack Akrigg were all unavailable.

It was the visitors who set the agenda early on and pushed Vale deep into their own half.

But a combination of some excellent defending allowed a scrambling Vale to keep their line intact before they opened the scoring after 21 minutes when Charlie Lomas kicked over a penalty.

Chris Ramwell restored parity with a penalty of his own ten minutes later but Vale hit back with a converted try through full back Tom Ball to lead 10 - 3.

Vale stretched their advantage after forty minutes with an unconverted try when skipper Sam Wallbank slipped the ball to Alex Baines who touched down in the right hand corner to lead 15 - 3 at the break.

Kirkby would have been looking to score first in the second half but it went the other way when Vale converted a try to stretch their lead to 22 - 3 through centre Adam Macluskie.

Kirkby responded with a period of pressure during which Vale, desperate in defence, lost a player to the bin and Kirkby didn’t waste the advantage with number six Sam Chesney-Benson blasting over for a try converted by Ramwell to give the visitors a glimmer of hope at 22 - 10.

But as the match entered the final quarter and Kirkby tried to reorganise, Vale began to find space and ran in a further three tries.

In the sixty first minute the visitors had a kick charged down on their twenty two, the ball went free to Jimmy Moore to put his name on the score sheet.

With the clock ticking down Ben Charnley ghosted through from a line out for an unconverted try and in the seventy fifth minute Ian Bird powered away before passing to Ben Dorrington, who pinned back his ears to touch down between the posts as Scott Manning added the conversion to seal an opening day victory.