Wigton duly won their local derby with Silloth at Lowmoor Road 64-7 to move strongly back into promotion contention.

The Greens are now second in the North Lancs Cumbria table, helped by surprise defeats for Bolton and Fleetwood. Leaders Carlisle also failed to pick-up a bonus point in their 14-7 win at Upper Eden.

Coach Mark Lee will be particularly pleased that, despite having to make five changes to the squad which comprehensively beat De La Salle, there was a seamless integration of Mark Deans, Ryan Wannop and James Brough up front while promising three quarters Stephen Harris and Josh Leeson both did their cases for regular shirt no harm at all.

Deans, in particular, was keen to make an impression. He has operated mostly from the bench this campaign but on this form he will be difficult to leave out.

He rolled back the years, producing possibly one of his strongest displays in a green shirt - constantly breaking the Silloth defensive line with rampaging runs from deep and backing that up with an impressive defensive shift.

He went on to score four tries and it was no surprise to anyone when he deservedly took the HSBC man of the match award.

The foundation for the victory came from the dominant work of the Wigton front row of acting captain Kevin Robinson, Alexander Johnston and Ryan Wannop, who completely dominated their opponents.

They produced regular front foot possession on their own ball and destroyed the Silloth front five on a regular basis, securing ten balls against the head.

The line-out went well; the scrummaging was impressive and the forward purists would be purring at the quality of the Wigton driving mauls.

Silloth worked manfully to try and stem these efforts but, in doing so by 'overloading', created acres of space for the half-backs Fergus Ledingham and Gregg Smith to exploit.

For Silloth, this was very much a defensive shift with limited possession to work with so they endured a tough afternoon.

From the forwards, captain Greg Wrathall stood out as a player of real potential as he never took a backward step, managing to disrupt mauls almost single-handedly at times and completing a number of effective tackles.

He was also their most effective ball carrier along with the strong running Joe Kirkup in midfield, who provided a constant challenge to the Greens' line.

With such a surfeit of possession for Wigton, the scores came at regular intervals and they finished with nine tries, eight of which were converted.

But it was a Smith penalty which helped Wigton on their way soon after they had taken the lead with a diving maul, which went 20 metres before Deans completed a simple touchdown.

Silloth were under intense pressure but eventually on 28 minutes pick and go plays from Stuart Creighton, Alex Johnstone and Andy Brown paved the way for Deans to blast over from short range.

The next score came on 32 minutes following a driving maul, which had dragged in the Silloth defence and the ball was fed out to Smith to score under the posts.

When it was the turn of the backs to show their pace, a line break from Richard Moffatt gave Arron Henderson the opportunity to outrun the last defender and touchdown out wide.

The final try of the half came a minute before the break. Against a tiring defensive line, Jamie Warwick underlined his potential with a storming run down the middle, breaking three tackles.

He was finally hauled down just short but offered a fine off-load to Brad Bouch who cantered over and Smith’s conversion gave Wigton a 38-0 advantage.

Two minutes after the restart, Wigton were straight back on the attack and Smith broke away before timing a perfect pass for winger Henderson to get to the posts.

The next 20 minutes was probably Silloth’s best period of the match.

Wigton’s energy levels dropped-off a little and Silloth seized the opportunity to put some phases together.

The Wigton tackling got a little sloppy throughout this period too and an unnecessary high tackle gave Mumberson the chance to push Silloth up the line to a five metre line-out.

Wrathall secured line-out ball and, after a series of drives close to the line, prop forward Luke Baker went over in the corner with Sean Mumberson effecting an excellent touchline conversion.

Wigton regained the initiative and before the end scored two more tries.

Both came from dynamic mauls as Deans completed his hat-trick and Bouch scored his second. Only one was converted by Ryan Clark.

It was fitting Deans should close-out the game.

Following some impressive off-loading, he broke away yet again and ran to the posts unopposed for Clark to add the conversion.