Published at 11:26, Monday, 28 May 2012

Egremont Rangers and Stanley Rangers served up a sunshine points feast at Gillfoot with the west Cumbrians winning 58-30.

Stanley took five hours to reach the ground, travelling the scenic route via Ullswater, Windermere and Coniston but were first on the scoreboard as loose forward Kyle Samson crashed over and Dan Griess converted within two minutes.

The score had stemmed from some Egremont indiscipline and shook the home side, but they answered quickly and efficiently as Clayton Sutton grabbed the first of his four tries.

Egremont finished off with an 11-try romp around a sweaty Gillfoot Park, with the temperature making it feel more like the Serengeti National Park.

Before half-time Egremont scored a further six times from Ali Leak, Ryan Barnes, Sutton (twice more), Gary Elliott (carrying four defenders with him over the line) and young Jack Stainton.

Four of them were converted by Matt Bewsher.

It wasn’t all one-way traffic as Darly Gaunt and the influential Dom Hunt both crossed to score and Griess converted to take the half-time score to 36-16.

Paul Telford was hot out of the blocks with a converted try just after the break to increase the Egremont lead, but then Stanley’s young winger Jordan Arthur found space to add more points to their tally, but without any conversion.

A returning James McDonald and fullback Rhys Davies then made the scoreboard with converted tries to extend the lead.

The Davies try was the result of a ‘champagne moment’ by Sutton.

With such a lead the home side must have thought a bit of sunbathing was in order and were lax in defence, letting Stanley cross twice in quick succession from Griess and Richard Cartely. Griess converted his own try.

Man of the match Sutton had the last word of the day with a superb try care of a Peter Murphy break but all credit to Stanley Rangers who, after that epic five-hour journey and only a 14 man squad, gave a good account of themselves.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk