Ellenborough had beaten big guns Distington and Hensingham in recent outings, and they almost made it a treble of major scalps.

At home to Walney Central in the Cumbria Men’s League, they had to settle for a point from a 28-28 draw.

It was five tries apiece in a cracking contest which could have gone either way before the final whistle.

Zac Olstrom, one of the leading try scorers in the competition, helped himself to another couple for Ellenborough and was joined on the score sheet by Shane Ackerley (2), recently released by Whitehaven, and Rhys Burr. There were four goals from Michael Hill.

Matty Elliot was the match hero for Walney with a hat-trick of tries while there were also touchdowns for Jordan Staferri and Stuart Tippet. James Finch kicked four goals.

The game between Seaton and Hensingham was postponed when the appointed referee suffered an injury and was unable to officiate.

It looks too close to call in the race for the Iggesund Cumberland ARL title and two of the three games were very closely contested.

Cockermouth Titans went top of the pile when they beat Aspatria Hornets 34-28 while Egremont stayed with them after a nail-biting 20-18 win against Kells.

Shane Cusack was a hat-trick hero for the Titans while Gareth Skillen contributed even more points with a try and five goals. Andrew Prest and Tom Lindsay both got over for tries.

Aspatria were always in the contest and replied with tries from Mark Irwin (2), Luke Johnston, Shane Evitts and Ross Barton. Johnston landed four goals.

An extra conversion was all that separated Egremont and Kells after their Copeland derby clash on the same day their respective first teams had fought out an even closer contest in the National Conference.

Patrick Bennett, Cameron Moore, Jack Thompson and Daniel Telford scored tries for Egremont, two of which were converted by Bennett.

For Kells, there were tries from Jordan Herve (3) and Harry Watson but only one conversion by Ryan Robb.

The other game wasn’t as close as Lowca leap-frogged Broughton Red Rose in the table with a 64-10 victory over them.

Lowca scored 11 tries, led by Tony Hetherington (3) and Callum Sirkett (2). There were other touchdowns by Emmerson Allen, Declan McKenna, Aiden Pirie, David Scott, James McNally and Paul McNally.

The goals were spread among Sirkett (6), Toby Finlay (3) and Keith Campbell.