THERE was a pleasing circularity to Lymm Rugby Club's return to North Premier action.
Kirkby Lonsdale – Saturday's visitors to Beechwood – were the last team Adam Fletcher's men played before Covid-19 ground rugby union at community level to a halt 18 months ago.
Games between the two sides are historically close but on this occasion, Lymm were comfortably the better side and ran out 49-7 winners.
Having shaken off some ring rust in the first half an hour, Fletcher's side broke clear once Ollie Higginson finished off a half-break from Rob Makin to open the scoring.
Scrum-half Gregor Watson – one of six debutants in the home side – dived over to make the score 14-0 at the break and just after the interval, an impressive move finished with Cormac Nolan executing a sublime blind reverse pass to send Sam Wandsworth over.
Higginson doubled his tally close to the posts before Wandsworth did the same shortly afterwards, finishing off after Makin had thrown a 20-metre miss-out pass.
Aaron Rasheed grabbed Lymm's sixth try before Kirkby Lonsdale finally got themselves on the board, with scrum-half Ben Walker breaking and crossing after exchanging passes with a teammate.
However, it was the hosts who had the final say thanks to Jordan Widdrington's push-over try, with Nolan adding the extras to make it seven from seven from the kicking tee.
"It was great to be back at Beechwood playing competitive rugby," head coach Fletcher said.
"I thought there was a lot of nerves, tension and enthusiasm out there and that probably showed in the first 30 minutes.
"Once we scored, we settled down. We had a real purple patch where we scored some amazing tries.
"I thought the ambition to move the ball and attack from deep was great.
"There were some real standout performances but I was most impressed with how the six debutants settled in."
Lymm travel to Rossendale for their next fixture on Saturday.
Action from Lymm's 49-7 win over Kirkby Lonsdale on Saturday
Action from Lymm's 49-7 win over Kirkby Lonsdale on Saturday
Action from Lymm's 49-7 win over Kirkby Lonsdale on Saturday
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