Masters Make Lakes Debut….. we’ll be back!

On Saturday Crusaders Masters headed West into Lakeland and the picturesque town of Ambleside, for Masters in the Lakes. The festival was well organised by Carlisle Masters and equally well hosted by Ambleside Rugby Union.

In a change to the advertised format, Crusaders found themselves playing Barrow Masters as the last fixture of the day.

This proved no drama whatsoever as we got to watch some great Masters Rugby League from the other teams.

When game time arrived it was worthy of the wait. A fantastic game ensued, played at a fast pace despite the lack of youthful exuberance. Crusaders defended the edges really well and had much less of an issue removing tags, from Gold shorters and above, with a well organised defensive line. In attack Jase and Longers steered the team around the park with no lack of volunteers to take the ball in. There was some great line breaks and wide shots from the team. In the second half, after some brilliant build up work, Longers took the ball at first receiver and took it wide and to the left at the line, with perfect timing he hit Mike, who, after exploiting some space, still had some scrambling bodies to beat. A great turn of pace saw show the defenders a clean pair of heals for a great try!

The game was played with great spirit throughout and was very much enjoyed by both teams and the others teams who now enjoying the Ambleside hospitality. Congratulations to Longers for picking up Master of the Match.

Congratulations to Goadie, who has the dubious honour of being the first player to don our new Richard of the Day and Prat Hat. This was for picking up the ball from an offside position after Foxy had made a fine ball stop from a Barrow kick off!

The post match raffle etc raised a whopping £600 for MacMillan Cancer Support. After a few slices of pizzas and a few quaffettes the vast majority of the team headed back home. Gaz, Jase, Goadie and Darren had other plans and decided to camp near Bowness and head into Bowness itself for a few sociables, where they bumped into some of the gents from Normanton Masters. A really good night was had by all.