Ruthless St Cuthbert’s punish understrength Burnley and Pendle

First blood went to the locals.

A high tackle penalty gave the Black and Reds good field position to launch an attack on the home try line.

With a slick handling just coming up short, Danny Rowland, playing at hooker, burrowed over to score, converted by Marcus Farnworth.

From the kick-off the visitors knocked on to give St Cuthbert’s a scrum in the red zone, and the home side overloaded their left side attack, working an overlap to score in the corner.

The classy Wigan stand off then kicked early in the tackle count, catching the defence out of position, and the winger outpaced the defence. the bouncing ball sitting up nicely to gather and score again out wide.

Wigan now stepped up a gear. The half back combination continually lauched attacks , and desperate goal line defence saw Burnley and Pendle drop out from under their own posts. The scuffed kick and a dubious off-side offence saw St Cuthbert’s take possession in good field position, and again, an overloaded attack on the left resulted in a try out wide to make it 14-6.

Burnley and Pendle restarted the game with a towering kick from Marcus Farnworth, which Wigan knocked on. Danny Rowland gathered the ball and sprinted to the line to score, but picked up a shoulder injury that hampered him for the rest of the game.

However, once again, an unforced error put the visitors under pressure. Knocking on again at the restart gave Wigan an attacking scrum, and poor defence let the home side in their lead to 18 -12.

Whatever was said by the home coach at half-time had an effect. An early goaline drop out saw the ball run back strongly through some flimsy defence to double their advantage.

From then on it was one-way traffic.

With the young Burnley and Pendle side running out of fit players, they had no answer to the strong running of the Wigan forwards.

St.Cuthbert’s really upped their game, the experienced half back pairing were pulling the strings and it seemed everything they tried came off.

The home side ran in a further eight tries to inflict a heavy defeat on Burnley and Pendle.

Burnley and Pendle look to get back to winning ways on Saturday, taking on Bury Broncos at the Prairie, kick-off 2-30 p.m.