Silloth ended Hawcoat Park’s 100 per cent record for the season last Saturday, as the depleted visitors went down to a 22-13 defeat in Cumbria Division One.

Some late withdrawals meant the Maroon and Whites made the long trip to the north of the county with a bare 15 players, who had to take to the field in heavy rain which made handling difficult.

Despite being down in numbers, Hawcoat competed very well in what was an even contest and it was only when some of their players had to carry on with knocks, due to the lack of replacements, while dealing with fatigue that prevented them from finishing strongly.

Silloth took the lead after ten minutes when they chased down their own clearance kick before the ball was booted on for winger Luke Crossman to eventually touch down in the corner for an unconverted try.

Park hit back five minutes later, however, when scrum-half Will Coles moved the ball out to fly-half George Smith, who pinned his ears back to run through and score, with his missed conversion leaving the score level at 5-5.

Crossman was making good ground every time he got hands on the ball and one of his good long runs created the second Silloth try.

Both centres Jack Sutherland and skipper Chris Burns made timely covering tackles but eventually the sustained spell of pressure told as Ricki Sutcliffe forced his way over for a converted try to make it 12-5 at half-time.

Debutant Luke Harrison was doing well for Hawcoat and, following a great off-load by prop Scott Dobbie, he went on a long run cutting across the pitch, although he could not find that decisive gap.

This set up a good spell of forward pressure camped on the Silloth line, but after a move broke down the hosts countered to extend their lead, as the ball was kicked on the full length of the pitch for Crossman to collect his second try.

Park refused to lie down, though, and from a scrum the outstanding Callum Ramsay picked up from No.8 and charged down the blindside to force his way over.

The gap was then down to four points when Smith booted over a 30-metre penalty and it looked as though the match was heading for a grandstand finale

However, the Maroon and Whites were tiring and had a couple limping, in the closing stages meaning it was Silloth who finished the strongest.

From a forward platform, the ball was moved out wide and a long looped pass from their fly-half found Crossman, who managed to touch down for his hat trick out wide and seal the game.