Aspatria’s hopes of avoiding a post-season, ‘winner takes all’ relegation clash faded a little more on their trip to Percy Park. The home side ran out 33:13 winners and remain well placed to achieve their objective of chasing promotion through a series of play-off games.

Aspatria do retain a route through their remaining fixtures, which would avoid meeting either Durham City or Guisborough in a relegation decider. This said, no less than 2 and probably 3 wins from their final 4 games would be required to achieve this outcome. Plus, results elsewhere would need to go their way.

The one thing that can be guaranteed, and this shone bright in the manner of this defeat, is that the Aspatria playing squad retain a belief in survival and are 100% aware of the task that awaits them. It will not be easy. First up at Bower Park, next Saturday, are runaway league leaders Northern, who could be crowned champions, with a win, should Consett, the only club that can mathematically challenge them, lose.

It was another gritty performance from Aspatria in the North East, disappointingly for no reward.

On a claggy pitch, Aspatria took an early lead with a Jack Clegg penalty. The home side played some bright rugby, always keen to throw the ball around and over the next 20 minutes, capitalising on space created or given to score 3 tries, establishing a 19:3 lead.

Despite the score line, Aspatria felt very much in the game as the half crept onward and began to assert themselves. Their reward came before halftime when Clegg executed an outrageous dummy and crashed over to close the halftime gap to 19:8.

Aspatria continued to dominate field position as the second period got underway, but could not achieve a vital breakthrough that might have altered the course of this game. Relief for the home side, when it came, was a devastating blow to Aspatria, who suffered a breakaway try following a long kick out of defence. Aspatria’s appeal that a covering defender was illegally taken out of action failed to impress the referee.

Following such a crucial turn in the game Aspatria showed they had steel. Launching wave after wave of attacks. They engineered several close calls, but in the face of a tough, well-organised home defence, could not get the scores that their build-up play appeared to deserve.

As the game moved on, winger Dan Weir, benefitting from a fine back-line movement starting around halfway, crossed the line to close the gap to 26:13.

The score provided Aspatria with the real prospect of earning a losing bonus point. Yet again, attack after attack failed to deliver. On the balance of play, Aspatria certainly deserved something from the game but fell short.

Adding further to a sense of injustice, Park used the very last play of the game to break out of defence and score a final try that only served to mock the effort put in by Aspatria, but perhaps provided a valuable lesson in the art of finishing.