CUMBRIA 18 LANCASHIRE 10

CUMBRIA ended their unsuccessful defence of their BARLA County Tri-series crown by defeating Lancashire in a hard-fought contest at Askam's Fallowfield Park.

Two tries from Phil Lister and one from Marcus O'Brien helped secure the eight-point win for the hosts against a strong Lancastrian side, who were supported by former Wigan and Great Britain star Andy Gregory.

A head wound suffered by Gavin Martin saw him forced off early on, but Cumbria recovered from this early setback to take the lead after four minutes when Millom hooker O'Brien raced in from 30 metres for the opening try, which was converted by Scott Clayton.

Lancashire began to gain a foothold in the game after this and, although they were repelled on several occasions by the Cumbrian defence, the visitors eventually found a was through on 14 minutes with a move from a scrum which saw Sam Grainey go over out wide for an unconverted try.

The hosts survived giving away some needless penalties and began to apply pressure to the Lancashire line again.

The away side stood firm though until Clayton edged his side further in front with a penalty on 32 minutes.

Three minutes later, Lancashire were temporarily reduced to 12 men when Jack Jones was sent to the sin-bin for interference at the play-the-ball following a team warning, with Cumbria capitalising as Distington winger Lister raced in from 20 metres for an unconverted try to put them 12-4 up at the interval.

Lancashire hit back within five minutes of the restart when Jimmy Muir sliced through a gap to score, with Leicester converting to pull the deficit back to two points.

Lancashire thought they were in again, only for the try to be ruled out for a forward pass, and when Setgreki Tala was sin-binned for a high tackle on Dan Fryer, it left the visitors a man down for the final 10 minutes.

Cumbria duly punished them, with Clayton putting in a high kick which the defence failed to deal with and Lister using his pace to pick up the ball and dot down the game-clinching score.

Despite the win, Cumbria can no longer lift the title due to an inferior points difference to Tri-series leaders Yorkshire, who face Lancashire at Ince Rose Bridge on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the visitors proved too strong for Cumbria's under-19s in the day's opening fixture, running out 38-4 winners.