The teams will meet again on Saturday at Carlisle RFC in the league cup final but ahead of that they waged war in the final league game of the season with Aspatria doing just enough to edge out the home side by the narrow margin of 7:3.

This was a tense and occasionally ill-tempered game. At times the tackling was brutal with big hits all around the pitch. In this maelstrom both sides struggled to carve out clear cut scoring opportunities. Truly a day when defences ruled.

Aspatria made an impressive start to the game with a series of attacks that penned Cockermouth in and around the 22. Cockermouth’s defence proved equal to the task as they would, near enough all game. After absorbing 10 minutes of pressure a break out from around the 22 handed the home side a golden chance to get the scoreboard moving. The speed of the movement placed Cockermouth deep in Aspatria territory with a two man overlap but the killer pass was inaccurate and this allowed Aspatria time to recover and diffuse the danger.

With the game moving over the 20 minute mark Aspatria surely wondered why they had monopolised possession and territory but failed to cash in with points. The answer was best summed up by an attack down the right flank when Matthew Atkinson, Jack Clegg and Ken Bowes combined and looked certain to engineer a score but were foiled by a tenacious cover defence that put their bodies on the line to thwart what seemed seconds earlier a certain score.

The game moved on, scoreless, but the passion in both camps was obvious and a fracas broke out between the competing packs. No one walked, this time, but the referee left the players with little doubt that his patience was at an end. 2 minutes later Cockermouth’s No8 paid the price with a yellow card for what seemed a fairly trivial offence.

Unusually, for rugby at any level the teams turned around at half-time with a nil all score-line but with just 3 minutes of the second period gone that changed when Cockermouth’s Ed Gate knocked over a penalty from 35 meters for 3:0.

Aspatria resumed control of the game from the restart and showed admirable patience to set up what would be the match winning try. The score came after Clegg knocked a penalty deep into the 22 and Aspatria exerted control at the lineout to send Atkinson round the corner on a charge to the posts. Atkinson sucked in the defence and with the ball recycled in to the backs left winger Patrick Noutch found himself with clear space as he charged to the corner flag to dot down. Clegg converted from the touchline to give Aspatria a 7:3 advantage.

Aspatria continued to look the more likely to score as Cockermouth found themselves having to play from deep when possession came their way. The Aspatria defence was excellent, in the back row, Phil Dixon and Jacques Rowe worked tirelessly to foil all the home sides ambitions.

Up to the 65th minute the set piece action had been more or less a draw but at the next scrum the complexion of the game altered as Aspatria’s pack overwhelmed Cockermouth in the scrum and continued to do so for the remainder of the game. This small area of dominance enabled Aspatria to play most of the residual game in their opponents half. Further scores should have followed for the visitors but handling errors at vital times and the ‘never say die’ efforts of the home defence left the scoreboard unmoved.