Match report Carlisle v Aspatria Eagles 2-3-24

Fair play to Aspatria Eagles who turned up today, when others in their position might not have.
It gave Carlisle a chance to put a number of players who have benched, been on the fringes or just coming back from injury to show George exactly what they could bring to the side, with the county cup final looming.

It didn't take Carlisle long to get on the scoresheet with Rhys Callaghan finishing off a slick move to put Carlisle in front after a minute, Robbie James adding the conversion.
Vince Lung darted over for the second after 9 minutes, and centre Johnathan Park stretched the opposition defence to grab the third half way through the half.
Jake Whittaker secured the bonus point on the half hour mark,before Robbie James finished off the half by winning a footrace after an error from the Aspatria defender, converting his own try to go in 29-0 up.

Was it all one way traffic? I doubt Head Coach George Graham would have been satisfied, with Aspatria causing the defence problems for the latter part of the second half, determined not to be whipping boys, yet just unable to find a way through the home defence.

Carlisle pushed on in the second half, with Aspatria indiscipline adding to their woes, a high penalty count and a man in the bin gifting Carlisle the chance to exploit territory and possession to put another 5 tries on the board by the hour mark.
By the time Mark Greenwood added the 13th try just shy of the fulltime whistle, Aspatria had not much left, though they finished strongly, but were ultimately denied preventing a whitewash.

What did we learn?
There is strength in depth in the squad which bodes well for both the cup final and for next season. Provided everyone stays, there's no reason why we couldn't enter a competitive Crusaders side next season, with players now pushing hard for selection each week. That can only be a good thing and hopefully Carlisle have come out of the darkness of the last couple of seasons to push on for better things next season.

Cup final date is still under discussion, and we don't know the venue either, but it will be communicated as soon as we know.