The improvement continues at Warwick Road and whilst is would be unwise to be complacent, a win such as was achieved on Saturday must instil confidence in the ability of a team that, on this showing is in a false league placing.
After this creditable victory, Carlisle have moved off the bottom of the table, punching both Aspatria & Wigton below them.
Line out action Carlisle v Broughton Park
Perhaps not to be classed as outstanding, but the opening half of the game was controlled by Carlisle with the Broughton Park side seeing little of the ball. The Carlisle pack were well capable of holding their own in the tight and helped themselves to more than their share of the loose ball.
True that Carlisle did not score a try but they were fifteen points to the good without reply at the break, thanks to the boot of fly half Glen Weightman who landed five penalties; it could have been more but he missed the easy ones!
The game was littered with penalties, 25 for Carlisle and 5 for the visitors who became increasingly frustrated and limited the Carlisle attack on the final approach more than once and they found themselves with two men in the sin bin just before the interval.
After the turn round, Carlisle had a little more defending to do when errors allowed the visitors a greater share of the ball than they had in the opening period.
The Carlisle defence had to be on their metal to deal with the attacks coming their way, two of which resulted in well taken tries, one in each corner from the speedy winger Ade Titiloye. One was converted by full back, Ronan O’Brien.
Glen Weightman sets the ball for one of his eight penalty successes.
Throughout the second period Weightman landed a further three penalties.
Carlisle were down to fourteen men with three minutes to go when lock, Callum Rowlandson was binned for handling in the ruck.
Park had their afternoon of woes compounded in the last minute of the game when hooker, Andy Wilson was yellow carded for a high tackle; the colour quickly changed to red when he apparently remonstrated with the referee!
North 1 West League
Saturday, 15th October 2011
Man of the match for Carlisle: Glen Weightman.
Scorers for Carlisle: Pens: Glen Weightman (8)
The Carlisle team:
15 Lewis Boyd
14 Martin Brodie
13 Dan Holmes
12 Barry Earl
11 Matt Minbett
10 Glen Weightman
9 Joe Blaylock (Tim Hughes)
1 Callum Hermeston
2 Tom Graham
3 Martin McGimpsey
4 Paul Halliday
5 Callum Rowlandson
6 Dan Smithson
7 Bobby Sherlock
8 Mark Barron (C) (Gareth Wylie)
16 Gareth Wylie
17 Martin Kalinowski
18 Tim Hughes
Next match away at Northwich – 22/10/2011.
Carlisle Crusaders had a convincing away win at Trafford MV - 18 pts to 32 pts, lifting them to 3rd in their league.