Kendal Warriors 33 - 96 Newcastle University

KENDAL Warrriors skipper Gareth France was encouraged by his team's performance against high-flying Newcastle University but admits his side must learn to sustain pressure for longer periods of the game if they are to pick up their first win of the campaign.

The Warriors, playing in their debut season in Northern Division 4, remain rooted to the foot of the table alongside Sefton Stars 2nds and Liverpool 2nds after the north-east club inflicted a heavy defeat on Kendal when they travelled to Dallam School on Saturday.

"We always knew this was going to be a difficult game having seen their winning margins in other games," said France. "However I was disappointed with our play at times as it was often apprehensive and on too many occasions we didn't take care of the ball when in possession.

"The first quarter we showed some real positives as we caused them problems both on offence and defence but we must make sure we play like this for longer periods."

Newcastle signalled their intentions right from the start as two consecutive three point shots silenced the lively home crowd.

Kendal were to fight back however as better rebounding, led by Keith McInnes, and increased defensive pressure particularly from Mathias Basedow and Phillip Mason would limit the visiting teams' shooting threat. Points from Gareth France, Kevin Mason and Nathan Williams saw the Warriors gain the lead for the first and only time in the match.

Newcastle quickly hit back going into the start of the second quarter and whilst Kendal were to put up a fight for part of this period the visitors would take advantage of a sluggish defensive unit by pressing them into numerous turnovers before the Warriors could react and make changes.

Newcastle continued in this manner into the second half as they capitalised on a demoralised Kendal team who weren't helping their own cause as they needlessly gave the ball away even when under little pressure.

From this point Kendal rotated their whole bench at regular intervals. Whilst this gave opportunities to a number of players to gain increased playing minutes it also led to a further lack of fluidity on offence.

Despite some glimpses of promising play from Marc Crockford and Tom Withnell these moments proved to be the exception rather than the rule as Newcastle ran out comfortable winners.

The Warriors take on second placed Tameside at Dallam this Saturday with 5pm tip.

"This also has the potential to be a difficult game as they sit second in the league following some equally big and impressive victories," said France. "Hopefully with a big crowd behind us again we can produce a better performance."

Scorers

G France 13 K Mason 10 P Mason 2 M Basedow 2 T Withnell 2 M Crockford 2 K Arfanis 0 P Howarth 0