Kirkby Lonsdale 26 Wilmslow 18

WILMSLOW Wolves' winning run ended at Kirkby Lonsdale on Saturday.

Rick Jones' men suffered defeat for the first time in eight outings but will go into Saturday's home clash with Altrincham Kersal still holding third place in RFU North One West.

Wolves gave the unbeaten runaway leaders by far their toughest home test of the season so far, taking an early 8-0 lead and turning round with an 11-7 advantage at Underley Park.

They did not do much wrong, but came up against a side – even without their talismanic scrum half Ben Walker – that have an extra gear when needed.

That enabled the hosts to play at a level for 20 crucial minutes that Wolves had no answer to.

Kirkby, who had not scored less than 50 points in any of their previous five home wins, mounted a second-half blitz to score three tries that confirmed the outcome was all over by the hour mark.

A rout looked on the cards.

That it did not take place was partly due to the obduracy of the Wolves defence and partly due to the home side resorting to kicking away possession instead of retaining the handling and running game which had caused Wilmslow trouble.

In the first minute right wing Hone Karaka made himself difficult to stop before offloading inside to centre Ethan Harding, who held off the defence to score the opening try.

And when Kirkby were penalised at the breakdown minutes later Bob MacCallum stepped up to make it 8-0.

For the rest of the first half, there was not much to choose between the two sides but KL did look increasingly dangerous when they had possession.

The Wilmslow dyke was breached after 20 minutes with a phase one play from the base of a scrum.

The only other addition to the score in the first half was a second penalty from MacCallum.

From a turnover Kirkby scored their second converted try to take the lead.

A dash nearly the length of the field led to the hosts extending their advantage and from the restart Kirkby's forwards were able to break away to lay the platform for the bonus-point try.

To their credit Wolves dug in and were eventually rewarded late on when full back Toby Rowe joined the line and crossed for his side's second try.

It made the scoreline look a bit closer than in reality it probably should have been.