St Benedict's will find it tough to better their achievements of last season when they were easily Cumbria’s team of the season.

North Lancs Cumbria champions, County Cup winners for the second year in a row, and Intermediate Cup losing finalists at Twickenham were major successes.

Tomorrow, they start life in North One West - ironically Cumbria’s only representatives, after Penrith’s switch to the East section, Kendal’s promotion and Carlisle’s relegation.

Retaining their status in North One West and consolidating will be the major aim for the coaching staff and the playing squad which remains intact from last season.

They start at Leigh tomorrow after one warm-up game, in which, they lost by three tries to two at home to Percy Park.

Secretary Stephen Howse said: “We had a number of players missing for that game and Percy Park had the benefit of an earlier game which showed in that they were that little bit sharper than us.

“But everyone is looking forward to the challenge of playing at a higher level and our first opponents are not strangers to us. We played them in our League two years ago before they went up.

“We were very unlucky to lose narrowly down there and although they won well at our place we hadn’t our strongest team out.

“We expect to be taking a strong squad of players down there for the first game and want to make a good start.”

Benny’s may be the only Cumbrian team in North One West, but that certainly isn’t the case in North Lancs Cumbria where there are plenty of county derby games in prospect.

Workington are back up after winning the Cumbria League last season and they start with a trip to Trafford.

The Zebras lost four tries to one in their warm-up game last Friday against Carlisle but expect to be sharper for that work-out.

Wigton (v Littleborough) and Silloth (v Oldham) start with home fixtures tomorrow while Upper Eden (at De La Salle) and Aspatria (at Fleetwood ) are on the road.

It’s a big day for Silloth when they officially unveil the new extensions to the clubhouse, ahead of their game with Oldham.

But the club had been rocked last weekend by a break-in when £7,000 was stolen and that has rather deflated officials so close to the new facilities being opened.

The Tigers are still waiting to appoint a new coach, but are hoping that Bill Laidlow, who has been helping-out with pre-season training, will be able to do it on a regular basis. Laidlow has previously coached Wigton and Penrith.

Joe Kirkup has taken on the captaincy after Jonathan Burnyeat left to join local rivals Aspatria.

The Black Reds also have Scott Rooke in from Workington and two rugby league players, recently returned to the amateur code with Maryport after rather unhappy spells with Workington Town – Scott Akehurst and Dan Rooney.

Chairman of rugby Mark Richardson said: “We also have a couple of forwards training with us who are studying at Cumbria University and both are from down country. They look useful additions to the squad.”

Aspatria have had two warm-up games ahead of their trip to Fleetwood. The first was a competitive game, the first round of the County Cup when they lost 20-12 at Kendal. The second was a narrow 35-27 win against Egremont.

Richardson said: “We played very well at Kendal, actually winning the second-half 12-3. On that form we would be contenders for promotion but against Egremont we were a million miles away. It was 28-27 until late on when we scored a converted try. Full marks to Egremont as I was impressed by them.”

Wigton will also expect to be challenging for honours this season after solid progress in 2015/16.

The Cumbria League does not start until next week.