WARRINGTON face a crunch home clash on Saturday after being knocked from their perch.

After seven successive wins saw them hold court at the top of North One West, a 27-12 defeat at damp and dismal Kendal at the weekend leaves them fourth - such is the close competition among the leading four sides.

Now they are gearing up to face new league leaders Kirkby Lonsdale at Walton Lea Road, kick off 2.15pm.

Coach John Callendar feels his men need to learn the lessons of their Cumbria trip quickly.

“It’s always hard to win there,” he said.

“But I think we made it harder for ourselves with too much spilled ball and too many missed kicks.

“In addition, this was our first wet-weather game and we found it hard to adapt to the conditions.

“We now have to regroup for the big one against Kirkby.”

The opening skirmishes of the game gave no indication of what was to come, as Warrington started off in uncustomary high gear and soon had points on the board.

An astute Tom Wood kick to the corner forced a knock-on from the Kendal right winger and from the resultant scrum, the ball flashed across the backs before Luke Johnstone spotted the smallest of gaps and sliced through the defence to touch down under the posts.

Darren Norman converted and Warrington were seven points ahead.

At this point the rain started to fall and the already watery pitch became soaked while the ball took on the surface consistency of soap.

As a result, Warrington started to commit more errors than they have done all season and eventually Kendal capitalized with a well-struck penalty.

However the home side were now adapting much better to the conditions, as was to be expected and their marauding pack produced good continuous ball before finally releasing their back who handled superbly to score a try in the corner.

This was converted from the touchline to make the half time score 10-7.

Ten minutes into the second half, Warrington had a good chance to draw level but the kickable penalty was missed and Kendal returned to the attack, pinning the visitors in their own half for much of the time.

When the home side reverted to type with an excellent driving maul ten yards out, a forwards’ try seemed inevitable but the ball was released to the backs and Kendal’s pacey right winger crossed between the sticks to allow an easy conversion.

Warrington finally managed to find some of their expected flair on the energy sapping pitch when Kieran Hughes made a forty-yard break which was supported by Tom Wood and Max Walker, before Nathan Beasley showed his pace to touch down in the corner to reduce the deficit to just five points.

Unfortunately any Warrington hopes were soon dispelled when Kendal created an excellent try which saw their stand-off take an inside pass to ghost over.

The conversion took their lead to 12 points and although Max Walker came close with a typical surge in the last ten minutes, Warrington’s hopes of achieving their first-ever win at Kendal were finally destroyed when the home side sealed off the game with a penalty.