Following their narrow victory at Windermere, Workington made it two Cumbria League wins in succession as they ground out a hard-fought 31-15 home triumph over Millom.

Bottom of the table, the south Cumbrians remain winless after 12 attempts.

The Zebras looked lively from kick-off and, after Sam Robinson smoothly converted a penalty on four minutes, they were camped in the visitors’ half, eagerly sniffing out their first try.

That duly came eight minutes later when a forceful scrum pushed them over the line and Grant Reid was on hand to touch down. Robinson converted.

Millom regrouped quickly and began to take the game to their hosts with well-drilled surges into Zebras’ 22, and their probing yielded an unconverted try on 18 minutes.

Their equally-determined scrummaging led to them crashing over the whitewash.

Back came Workington and they did so in style with two tries in as many minutes.

First an excellent pattern of attack was polished off by John McCrickerd who powered home to score and then, on 28 minutes, Tom Sewell collected the ball just past halfway before turning on a devastating turn of pace to leave Millom floundering as he delivered a spectacular solo try. Robinson landed both conversions.

With the score now 24-5, it looked as if Millom were going to collapse but they had other ideas as again they belied their lowly status with more well-crafted play.

Eight minutes from time, they bagged their second unconverted try when another surge caught the Zebras napping and the south Cumbrians cut through the defence to finish off in the corner.

For the opening 15 minutes of the second half, it was an evenly-poised affair as both sides initially cancelled each other out in midfield before eventually launching several dangerous attacking forays.

After reaching the opposition’s half, they both fell foul of clumsy knock-ons and excellent tackling – especially from Workington’s Matt Gorley, who was twice on hand to thwart Millom from scoring.

Suddenly, the visitors took a firm grip on the game and, on 62 minutes, their intensive pressure caused the Zebras to buckle and concede a third try which was again unconverted. Had all three kicks been successful, there would only have been three points between the sides.

Just as Millom were keen to pull off an unlikely comeback, so Workington were determined to close the game out and maybe snatch another try to secure a bonus point.

McCrickerd, Sewell and Jonny Howarth were all working extremely hard with menacing approaches into Millom territory.

With the last play of the match, Workington did indeed clinch the bonus point.

Right on full-time, more precision scrummaging ended with David Wordsworth being the lucky man to scramble over and score.

Robinson maintained his perfect record with another conversion.

The promotion boat may have long since sailed away, but with two successive wins behind them, Workington can now plan a voyage for the safe waters of midtable respectability.

Only two other games were played in the league, the most important being at the Playground where leaders Whitehaven beat third-placed Furness 25-10.

As a consequence of Cockermouth’s excellent 45-0 win at Windermere, they have now moved above Furness into third place.

That win was built on a brilliant opening half which was the most polished performance of the season, racking up 33 points and only allowing Windermere one visit to their line.

The Wasps’ pack showed their muscle by scoring three push over tries from mauls and scrums against big and powerful Windermere forwards.

James Hunter, Paul Greening (2), Jonny Ostle, Ross Maguire and Charles Van Den Bosch (2) scored the tries with sponsors’ man-of-the-match Ed Gate landing five conversions.