Penrith Rugby Club and Keswick both suffered defeats in North One West which, in the main, could be put down to making poor starts.

In Penrith’s case, the 34-20 loss at Broughton Park was their first defeat of the season, while Keswick are still looking for their first point after going down 43-5 at Vale of Lune.

This was Penrith’s fifth game of their league season, their first outside the county and it was back to last season’s poor away trip fare for a while, not helped by having to make nine changes, four of them positional.

A last-minute cry-off also meant head coach David Preston had to start the game, extending his illustrious playing career into yet another season.

For the first half-hour, the visitors were poor.

The defence has improved markedly this season but, for that 30-minute period, it let them down badly. At the end of the first quarter, Park had scored three unanswered tries and led by 17 points.

It looked bleak but they started to rally and get into their game and then came up with a score of their own when captain Ed Swale sneaked around the blindside, threw a dummy, and dived over the line.

The Cumbrians were beginning to get into the game but not before they conceded another soft try, but they then injected some much needed pace into their game and finished the first half on a high.

Craig Price was dragged down just short and the forwards piled in before the ball was spun quickly right, the overlap was on and Olly Gutteridge put Fraser Nicolson in to claim the try out wide.

Penrith then scored from the restart when Jay Rossi looked to be short of support but spun out of the last tackle and made it to the line.

They turned around at the break 24-15 in arrears but it was a lot better than it might have been and they got to within four points when Price finished off an overlap.

The home side, who had been dominated in the third quarter, came slowly back into the game and kicked a penalty to lead by seven points which would still have left Penrith with two bonus points.

But, as the game reached its conclusion, the home side were in the ascendancy and the visitors were hanging grimly on.

A fifth try for Broughton Park was on the cards and it duly came when their winger hit the line at pace and scored under the posts.

Keswick were in trouble in the first minute in Lancaster when an attempted clearance kick was charged down, gathered by Vale and scored an unconverted try.

From the restart, Keswick gave away a penalty and Vale, running it through both backs and forwards, scored a converted try under the posts. The speed of the attackers again caught out the visitors with a second charge down leading to Vale’s third try on 10 minutes.

A scrum on the Keswick 22 was run from the back and a missed tackle allowed the home side to cross for their bonus-point try, converted to move 24-0 ahead with only 18 minutes gone.

On a rare venture into the Vale half, Keswick forced a knock forward for a scrum on their 10-metre line.

After being picked up at the back and ran right, the ball was passed to Ryan Weir who outpaced the defence and broke two tackles to score an unconverted try in the corner on 33 minutes.

The Keswick defence held out until seven minutes into the second half when Vale extended their lead to 29-5.

Keswick had their moments in attack but on two occasions got into good positions, only to be penalised for failing to release in a tackle and the pressure was off. Kicking was proving to be Keswick’s undoing and a kick downfield was caught by the Vale full-back who ran the ball back, passed it to the winger who benefited from some generous missed tackles to score a converted try on the right on 73 minutes.

More handling errors led to Vale scoring their final, converted try on 79 minutes.