Carlisle Centurions visited Lancaster on Saturday, and proved to be the tough test we anticipated.

Controversy continues to surround the inclusion of a team full of established players in what is essentially a development league. Carlisle remain undefeated in the competition, and barring the most remarkable of upsets will continue their success to lift the Harry Jepson Trophy in the Grand Final come September 6th.

Rugby League is very much a territorial game; it was pleasing to see Lancaster make progress down field against such a highly organised team. The lack of a try was disappointing, but it certainly wasn't for the want of trying that we failed to breach the Carlisle line.

Despite clearly being outclassed, Lancaster continually got in the noses of the Carlisle team, disrupting their attack and forcing them into conceding penalties. Neil Walker had the honour of dropping the first goal for Lancaster Rugby Club for a century, the culmination of one territorial assault towards the Carlisle line.

This goal served a more important purpose than simply gaining a point for the Lancaster team; the resulting restart starves the defending team of possession for another 6 tackles, and when that team is of the quality of Carlisle, it is an extremely valuable result.

I applied the same logic to any kickable penalties - going for goal rather than touch to wind down the clock and receive possession again from the restart. However, this option backfires if the penalty fails to be converted or fails to find touch-in-goal, which is what happened on Saturday, handing possession straight to Carlisle. With hindsight, or the coach's foresight, kicking for touch would have been better on a number of occasions.

In many ways though, it was an improved performance compared to the previous week's disappointing showing against Blackpool. In both attack and defence there was a marginal improvement on the corresponding away fixture, but unfortunately not quite enough improvement! We can take pride in the effort put in, and the progress we have made so far, but it is tempered by the knowledge that we still have a long way to go.

We now have a weekend off the weekly grind of league fixtures to enjoy the York International 9s tournament; an event that last year was watched by a crowd of several thousand.

We have been placed in a group where we can be hopeful of claiming our first victory, albeit under 9-a-side rules! After that we have another home fixture against Bolton-le-Moors on the 28th June, a team which beat Lancaster by just 8 points in Bolton last month. We are obviously aiming to reverse this result and give our long-suffering fans something to cheer about. It is embarrassing being asked to sign autographs after such a heavy defeat!