HORNETS IN HAT FOR NEXT ROUND

Wath Brow Hornets emerged as victors of the big West Cumbrian derby in the first round proper of the Carnegie Challenge Cup.

 Cumberland League side Kells travelled down the road and made their Conference League neighbours work hard for their victory.

In the opening five minutes of the game both teams made plenty of mistakes with the ball going to ground.

Both sides tried endlessly to get the upper- hand with numerous drives but both defences stood firm.

Then, from a quick play from Graham Lupton, the Hornets broke away down field.

Gary Elliott received a great inside ball from Dave Currie, and sliced past sevral would-be Kells defenders before slipping the ball outside to youngster Peter Caddy who went over in the corner to give the Hornets a 4 -0 lead.

Craig Johnstone’s conversion was wide of the posts.

From the restart the home side started to put together some fine passing movements which put them in to a good scoring position.

Again the ball went fast through hands before reaching full back Ryan Amor and he touched down in the corner to extend the lead to 8-0.

The Hornets were now taking control of the game but visitors Kells would not throw the towel in and were still causing some problems.

Mark Troughton, Kevin Thompson and Currie were driving big inroads in to the visitors’ 45-metre area and, in an identical try to the first, Peter Caddy went over the whitewash for his second score of the day to give the home side a 12-0 half time lead.

The second half kicked off and again a few mistakes crept into the game which was only natural after so long a lay-off for both sides.

Kells worked the ball well through hands with Paul Cullnean and Kevin Agnew working hard.

And on 55 minutes, they got their just rewards. Following some hard work from the forwards, Ross Gainford burrowed his way through the Hornets defenders to give them a well deserved try.

Gainford converted his own try to put them back into contention.

Both teams were now looking a bit tired as the pitch was getting heavy, both packs worked hard but neither would give an inch.

The Hornets took the ball up field with some fine work from David Pettitt and Scott Teare.

Then Kells were penalised with five minutes to go and their former player Ryan Robb put the knife in as he slotted over the resulting goal for the final score of the afternoon.

The Hornets were victorious 14-6 and now go on into the second round of the competition.