After a two-year absence from the North Lancs Cumbria League, Workington are still adjusting on their return.

It painfully showed as they suffered their second straight defeat, going down 55-0 at The Ellis to a rampant Fleetwood.

With several key men absent through injuries and other commitments, Workington were always going to struggle against their Lancashire visitors and, within 20 minutes, found themselves 15-0 down following two tries, a conversion and a penalty.

However, the Zebras began to finally make dangerous inroads into their opponents’ half – especially with Phil Flavell, Shaun Murphy and Tom Lawson all ever-alert and in the thick of the action – but at every turn they were thwarted by an uncompromising rearguard.

Fleetwood increased their lead on 28 minutes as they caught their hosts flat footed with another unconverted try and, within five minutes of the second half, wrapped up a bonus point and effectively sealed the match with a pair of breakaway tries, both of which were converted

Like they did in the first half, Zebras quickly recovered and began to throw everything as they attempted to break their duck, with Flavell and Murphy in particular both going close

But, just as Fleetwood had secured maximum points, so they were equally determined to leave The Ellis with a clean sheet and their defence once more stepped up a gear to stonewall their opponents.

A period of dogged scrimmaging paid off on 57 minutes when Fleetwood scored their sixth try of the match and signed off proceedings with two tries in the final 10 minutes as they punished Workington’s tiredness.

Aspatria had lost at Fleetwood but they got their season up-and-running with a 24-8 win over Bolton.

The Black and Reds had lost the last four contests between the clubs but in conditions perfect for a fast, flowing game they took full advantage.

When an early penalty set-up a line-out in the Matthew Atkinson’s clean catch started a roll to the line and eventually prop Paul Richard Kirkbride came from deep to bulldoze over the line. Jack Clegg converted.

Aspatria gave a debut in the backline to RL convert, Scott Akehurst who looked very decisive in attack, his linking up with full-back Liam Vickers showing great promise.

Unfortunately, Akehurst’s enthusiasm in the tackle got the better of him and he saw yellow on 16 minutes. This disrupted Aspatria and minutes later they were down to 13 men as Akehurst’s centre partner, Andrew Miller followed him to the bin for an ill-timed tackle.

With a numerical advantage of two men, this was a great opportunity for Bolton to push on. They failed to do so in the face of a magnificent display of ball retention by Aspatria.

With the teams back to a full complement tempers boiled over and Bolton were now regularly falling foul of the referee and this allowed Aspatria once again to engineer a catch and drive move from a five-metre lineout.

This was a move straight off the training ground perfectly executed and Atkinson strode over for the second try, converted by Clegg.

With the half coming to a close, Bolton’s Sam Fox kicked a penalty in front of the posts for a 14-3 interval score.

Clegg immediately landed a penalty for Aspatria on the restart to re-establish a 14-point cushion but that sparked Bolton’s best ten minutes of the game.

However the Bolton back division could not match the efforts of the big men as each time the ball went wide in attack mode the move seemed to flounder through error.

Aspatria absorbed the pressure up to the 57th minute when they finally broke out from their defensive stronghold and scored their third try. A clinical move down the right flank, orchestrated by Akehurst, put Vickers on a straight run to score in the corner. Clegg converted.

The home side battled hard for the bonus point try but couldn’t break through again.

A scrum was won around the halfway mark and moved upfield with electrifying pace where scrum-half, Jack Robinson touched down for an unconverted try.

Carlisle continued their highly promising start to the season with a very good 42-11 win at Trafford.

The home side, who had beaten Workington in their opening game, were first on the scoreboard with a penalty.

But Carlisle quickly gained parity when fly-half James Telford evened the scores with a penalty of his own.

He quickly followed with a second successful kick after centre Robbie James had been stopped by a high tackle.

Trafford enjoyed a good spell of pressure and eventually an infringement gave them the chance to draw level with their second penalty.

But Carlisle responded well and they were able to score two tries before the break to lead 18-6 at the change-over.

They moved the ball wide for Telford to score the first and then with the pack controlling things number eight James Brocket crashed over for the second, converted by Telford.

Within a few minutes of the restart, Carlisle scored a third try from a catch and drive with skipper Tom Graham touching down.

A flare-up proved costly for Trafford as their scrum-half was shown a red card and the 14 men struggled to contain Carlisle.

Telford secured the bonus point winning fourth try half way through the second half.

Credit to Trafford that they continued to battle away and from the restart caught the visitors on the wrong foot and scored what would be their only try after 66mins.

Back came Carlisle and Graham scored his second under the posts to restore the points difference.

It was left to replacement centre Jason Israel to round things off, as he burst through some tackles to find a gap in the defence and score the sixth and final try of the match.

Wigton made nine changes for their trip to Oldham and after a slow start could consider themselves rather unlucky to lose 32-27.

They had gone 10-0 down inside six minutes to two unconverted tries.

Silloth lost 53-12 at Aldwinians but gave a good account of themselves for nearly an hour. They were only 12-5 behind at half-time after Ricky Holt marked his debut with a try.

Play was held-up for 10 minutes after Blain Clawley picked-up a serious knee injury which required hospital treatment.

Ellis Nixon scored Silloth’s second-half try and Holt converted.