Carlisle Rugby Club won again in North One West to stay top of the table but opponents Warrington made them fight all the way for their 25-20 victory.

A losing bonus point was well deserved for a visiting side which travelled up by train but then had to find alternative transport home after the line had been blocked through storm damage.

Carlisle will feel they got out of jail, for they didn’t start or finish well in this match and gifted 13 points to the visitors from a lack of discipline and concentration.

In the first quarter, the home side had the upper hand in the scrum but Warrington were much sharper and handling the conditions better.

Carlisle were guilty of giving away too many penalties, and the Warrington full-back converted two of them inside 15 minutes.

Then on 18 minutes, with Carlisle seemingly on the point of winning a scrum, the ball squirted out, and Warrington pounced. They quickly made good use of the opportunity with their outside centre showing the home defence a clean pair of heels to score the first try, converted from the touchline by the full-back.

Things got worse for Carlisle when flanker Josh Holmes was yellow-carded for tackling a Warrington player in the air going for a high ball.

Carlisle did well to weather the storm and started to make the most of the ball being in the Warrington half. After a series of scrums inside the Warrington 22 resulted in too many penalties, the referee awarded a penalty try to get Carlisle kick-started.

Jason Israel narrowed the gap five minutes later with a long-range penalty effort, and after Warrington had missed a penalty chance, Israel converted another from in front of the posts to level it at the break, 13-13.

The second half saw Carlisle again give away too many penalties and they were fortunate when one just drifted wide of the post.

But they gradually started to build some field position through dominating scrum ball and, when they took one against the head, scrum-half James Telford took advantage to sprint wide off the back of the scrum for a try.

Carlisle were ahead for the first time and it had taken them 55 minutes.

Just five minutes later from another scrum, ten metres out, Carlisle pushed the visitors pack over their line for captain Henry Wainwright to dive on the ball for the third score.

Shortly after, the nature of the game changed as Warrington lost too many front rows to injury and the game went to uncontested scrums.

Although the visitors were now down to 14 men, Carlisle had lost an important part of their game, and from the back of their scrum, the Warrington side looked dangerous.

The sides were evened up on 73 minutes when Holmes received a red card for a second yellow card offence.

Warrington now seemed to have the upper hand and looked lively at the end of the match, even though there was a veritable monsoon driving across the pitch.

They made short work of some poor cover defence tackling and the ball was worked across the park for the right winger to go round and put the ball near the posts.

The full-back missed the easiest kick of the day and there then followed a couple of minutes of harem scarem rugby before the final whistle.