Egremont have been a free-scoring team in recent weeks, but Carlisle made the home side work incredibly hard for their narrow victory at a busy Bleach Green.

Playing with a strong breeze at their backs, Egremont got off to the more confident start and soon had their visitors pinned deep in their own 22 for lengthy periods of time.

However, the Carlisle defence proved very difficult to penetrate and it took an outstanding individual try from Egremont’s blind-side flanker Jimmy Temple to break the deadlock.

Fly-half Billy Thompson converted this score and added a further penalty to give Egremont a by no means comfortable lead, as the home side struggled to gain any rhythm in the face of a continued defensive effort from Carlisle.

Egremont came close to further scores from Fraser McNee and Jack Gascoyne in particular, but at half-time they had been unable to extend their parlous 10-0 lead.

Following the break, Carlisle made good use of the breeze by kicking for the corners and forcing Egremont to break from deep in their own half.

Fortunately, the Egremont forwards produced one of their best scrummaging displays for quite some time and they were able to starve Carlisle of possession in this crucial aspect of the game.

Carlisle scored a penalty to reduce the arrears to 10-3 but, although it was rarely pretty, Egremont managed to contain the visitors’ attacking threat with some excellent defence of their own.

That was all to change in an instant as Carlisle pounced on a momentary error during an Egremont attack to complete an interception try which was quickly converted to level the scores at 10-10.

To be fair to the home side, Egremont produced a superb response and created a multi-phase try which was scored by lock Kevin Brown.

The score went unconverted at 15-10, leaving Egremont to negotiate a tricky five minute period of pressure from the visitors. They duly managed to seal the hard-fought victory, having been made to battle right until the final whistle by their determined opponents.

This gives Egremont third place in the Cumbria League Two table having been a lowly ninth at the beginning of January, so full credit goes to the players for turning things around in such fine style.

Egremont are at home to Moresby this Saturday, with kick-off at Bleach Green reverting to 3pm.