Carlisle Rugby Club were too powerful for Penrith as they continued their impressive start to the season, beating their Cumbrian neighbours 31-5 at Warwick Road.

The City side started with the wind at their backs and threw everything at the visitors but Penrith defended well without seeing much of the ball in the first quarter of an hour.

Carlisle went through their moves but, at least initially, could not quite put the finishing touch to their approach play.

The first try was claimed by Carlisle as they broke out from deep with a piercing run from full-back Grant Connon to put winger Gregory Baines into space to go over in the left corner. Fly-half Max Connon slotted the touchline conversion for maximum points.

This seemed to spur Penrith on, because they kept Carlisle pinned deep in their own half for long periods for the rest of the half.

They kicked penalties to the corner on five occasions to force an attacking line-out and were able to win the ball and set-up the driving maul for the line but were never quite able to out muscle a strong Carlisle pack to score.

The Penrith pack even drove the highly-rated home forwards off their own set scrum but weren’t able to turn it into points.

Carlisle were using all the tricks in the book to disrupt the visitor’s drive which incurred the wrath of the referee and Josh Holmes, then Chris Auld, were shown yellow cards to leave them with 13 men for a few minutes at the end of the half.

Even so, they were still able to keep Penrith out and, on reflection, that may have been the turning point of the game.

Although they were now facing into the wind, Carlisle upped their intensity and the Penrith defence was placed under a lot of pressure, so much so they had George Graham yellow-carded.

Carlisle used the extra man to good effect as a sniping run from scrum-half James Telford earned him Carlisle’s second try after 47 minutes.

Ten minutes later, Carlisle grabbed their third as the Penrith defence was sucked into defending a ruck under the posts, and centre Auld threw a bullet pass out wide that put winger Baines into acres of space on the left to grab his second try.

Auld was instrumental in setting up Carlisle’s fourth five minutes later as he broke out from his own half, and with support players, moved the ball up to under the Penrith posts.

Although the ball was spilled and the Penrith defender gathered it in, he could only touch-down in the dead-ball area to set-up a Carlisle scrum five metres out.

With Penrith expecting Carlisle to go for a pushover, it was Telford who caught the Penrith defence out of position and crashed through a gap in the defence to score his second and Carlisle’s bonus-point try.

Penrith were under enormous pressure and, as it is always much easier attacking than defending, they were paying the price for having six front-row forwards in their squad.

However, they stuck to their task and they finally did get a score on 68 mnutes when a simple pass on the left looked as if it would have given the winger an easy try. However play was brought back right and Matt Allinson was able to make space for Jon Fell and get him in around the outside.

Any thoughts of a Penrith revival were quickly squashed as some clever interplay between the Carlisle back line moved the ball up the park at pace and gave centre Dan Holmes the opportunity to claim Carlisle’s fifth try and put the game beyond the visitors.

Maximum points from the first two games is always something to be savoured, and the Carlisle players and supporters have been delighted with the start to the season.

A trip to the Isle of Man to take on Douglas is Saturday’s task while it is a while since Penrith have lost the first two games of the season and they will be determined to open their account at home to Manchester this weekend.