WHARFEDALE 14

KENDAL 21

A once-in-a-career tilt at the big-time lost and now a proud year-long home record surrendered. Things are not going too well at the Avenue at the moment, but Saturday's defeat at the hands of a rugged and powerful Kendal pack represented more an opportunity missed than a merited loss.

Regular visitors to the Avenue in recent seasons, the newly-promoted Cumbrians were in anything but a friendly mood in their first League test on Dales' soil. And after dominating the first half and resisting a sustained Green's onslaught for much of the second, they eventually broke free to secure the crucial final match-clinching score.

With the benefit of near gale-force, wind-lashed conditions in the opening period, Kendal set off at a gallop and became the first side this season to put the Greens under pressure at the beginning of a match. On a day for the hard yard, their driving maul play set problems that Wharfedale took a long time to absorb. Intermittent, if somewhat arbitrary, penalties throughout the first quarter for illegally pulling down the maul presented Kendal full-back Mike Scott with successes after three and 20 minutes and, more crucially in terms of control of play, a number of attacking platforms from close line-outs.

Wharfedale, however, looking the more composed and balanced side, seemed to have weathered the early storm with a series of determined attacks in Kendal territory setting problems. Their meagre reward for some enterprising and lively play was a single, expertly-judged penalty low and under the wind by Adam Mounsey, but crucially, the majority of this phase of play took place thirty yards out and when Kendal regained possession, they were easily able to dispatch the ball back into Wharfedale territory.

Once more encamped deep in the home half and with lock David Lister sin-binned for illegally contesting the maul, Kendal stretched their lead in the final ten minutes of the half with two trademark tries. First, winger Paul Dodds squeezed in on the flag when the defence was sucked into a vain attempt to repulse a driving maul near the line and minutes later, from a further drive set up from a close tap penalty, flanker Colin Wolstenholme squirmed his way over.

Despite turning round16-3 down, few in the crowd thought it was all over. With the wind-lashed conditions now in their favour, the quiet expectation of a Dales' win appeared justified when Wharfedale quickly reduced the deficit to 14 - 16 and looked to have taken charge of the game

Two cleanly-struck penalties from Mounsey set the early tone and then, after a penetrative run-round from the base of the scrum had freed Graham Smith to the line, Hedley Verity drove deep at the heart of the vulnerable Kendal half-back defence and from the recycled possession Jonathan Davies put winger Chris Armitage in near the corner.

The ensuing ten minute furious Wharfedale assault on the line threatened to take the game by the scruff of the neck. The score which would have given the home side the lead seemed inevitable, but full bloodedly though Wharfedale threw themselves at the opposition, the crucial score proved elusive. The bonus of the Green's solid scrummaging and precise lineout retention in blustery, demanding conditions were now setting the pattern of the play. In their eagerness, the Greens' attack seemed a little caught between taking on the drive fully and the effective wider spreading of the ball. Verity's terrorising of fly half Casey Mee had all but opened out Kendal on his own, but he was reduced to successive foraging as lesser forward runners queued up off the ball. Crucially for Wharfedale, the points never came.

Kendal aided by successive penalty awards from a referee who never quite came to terms with consistent interpretation of the ball on the deck, escaped up field and camped in the top right hand corner.

Though faced with gallant and gritty home defence, Kendal's organised and determined ball retention - the ball never reached fly-half at any time - never allowed Wharfedale the deep clearance to safety. The clinching score inevitably arrived after 72 minutes via the driving maul. And superbly well as Kendal exhibited the virtue of playing exactly to your limitations, to fail to absorb a one-trick operation must have been very galling for the Wharfedale side.

With little time left to reclaim the seven-point deficit, the Greens' final assault on the Kendal line was aborted by the final whistle. Well though they played in patches, Wharfedale never quite played well enough when the opportunity to take the game was available. Despite much hard running by the forwards, with Richard Lancaster and Sam Allen at the start, as well as Verity and, especially, Paul Evans, hitting well beyond the gain-line, that line of attack was never rammed home with the ruthlessness employed by Kendal.

The backs played honestly in difficult conditions, but as in earlier games, failed to outwit an embracing offside defence and missed the tactical assurance, or even competitive bloody-mindedness, of David Pears. But the emergence in Chris Armitage of a genuine try-scoring winger brings a welcome final cutting edge to the attack, especially given the impending return of Andy Hodgson.

In truth, Wharfedale, even with their limitations, are too balanced a side, with some real individual talent, not to find their way forward again after successive defeats.