Cockermouth 8 Steelers 13

No such problems for the Zebras as a full squad + subs presented themselves at the Ellis. This included a few familiar, but not often seen faces, with Dion Seath, Darren Watson and Jamie Dunn dusting off their boots and trying to squeeze into their size 34” shorts.
The Cockermouth 1st XV looked like a good side in the warm up, with some big forwards and a mix of youth and experience suggesting a hard game ahead. Captain for the day Tom Doran set out the tactics and got the team out onto the pitch fired up and ready to go. Unfortunately the Zebras kick off went straight into touch. From the resulting half way scrum Cockermouth forced their way into the Zebras half. When the ball was swung along the line, a mix up in the Zebras defense led to the home side prop outpacing Dion Seath and going over the line in the corner. 0-5 down within the first 5 minutes, not a good start !

Heads could easily have gone down at this point, but the team rallied and resolute defense from the pack prevented Cockermouth forwards from building any momentum. Some crunching tackles from the likes of Chris Boyd and Bob Hodgson inspired the rest of the side to continue the good defensive effort. The hard work in defense, however, was spoilt by unforced handling errors whilst in possession and a scrappy period of play followed.
Continued pressure in the home side half soon saw the Zebras attacking the Cockermouth line, coming close on several occasions until Jack Little did well to force his way over from a ruck. Conversion was missed by John McCrickerd, leaving the scores at 5 all.
By now the lack of training was beginning to tell, with Darren Watson looking like Chris Evans after he’d fallen asleep on a sunbed (after one of his legendary drinking sessions ….on which he’d consumed lots and lots of pies) and Jamie Dunn was also suffering after being softened by his spell in League. The new rolling subs rule was used to give people much needed breathers.
As the half went on, the handling improved and some interpassing between the forwards and backs broke the Cockermouth line and saw Dion Seath making up for his earlier mistake by scoring. Despite touching down nearer the sticks , McCrickerd again missed the conversion. 5-10 to Zebras.
The only other score of the half came from a home side penalty, leaving the half time score 8-10.

The second half saw much of the same - a tight match with defense’s on top. Cockermouth tried hard to break down the Zebras defense but the tackling remained good (it has to be said from both sides).
A spell of prolonged Zebras pressure on the home line forced Cockermouth to defend doggedly, with the zebras crossing the line twice only for the ball deemed to be held up.
As the game wore on Cockermouth tried everything to get a score, but the Zebras defense held strong. Not even the arrival of Eric Stamper (or rather, his girlfriend) could distract the team from their efforts. (it was thought that she was maybe a plant from the Cockermouth side resorting to underhand tactics and not actually Eric’s ‘chick’). Zebras responded to this by sending Worsley on to talk to his opponents.
The only score of the half came from a penalty by McCrickerd from under the sticks, leaving around 15 minutes for the side to maintain concentration and collect the 8-13 win.
Even Tom Whittam almost made it a full match without his predictable hissy fit, making it all the way to the 75th minute before throwing his toys out of the pram.

Overall an excellent team performance, which bodes well for the rest of the season.
With a number of players returning from injury and other commitments next weekend, competition for places promises to be tight.