With only two places separating the teams in the relegation area this was a must win game for both sides. Wirral elected to play against the strong breeze in the first half; it was the home side that started the quicker.

In the third minute from a 5m line out, the home forwards rumbled forward and Ryan Higginson touched down. From a scrum six minutes later from the same position, scrum half Chris Crowley went blind and wide and managed to score in the corner, which was converted by James Annetts.

On the quarter of an hour mark, a well-executed move saw Joe Probert make a break before passing inside to Josh Connolly, who outpaced the defence to score in the corner.

At this stage it was all Wirral and a good bout of passing was finished with a dive by Sam Broadbent to score the fourth try in the corner and more importantly the try bonus point, giving Wirral a 22-0 lead after 20 minutes.

Carlisle came into the game and were able to exert pressure on the Wirral line but the home defence held firm with no more scoring before half time.

Immediately after the interval, a break by Chris Crowley and then Matt Loon took play metres from the Carlisle line with a final pass to Rob Pearl who scored under the posts.

Carlisle then controlled the ball and helped by penalties, were able to spend time in the Wirral 20m area and were rewarded with two converted tries through Tim Graham and Ben Purdham with Max Connon adding one conversion.

On 75 minutes, Wirral made sure of victory with a try in the 75th minute from Matt Loon with the conversion from Annetts pushing out the score to 36-12.

In the last five minutes, Carlisle pushed for a losing bonus point and almost achieved this with a try from Dan Holmes and then deep into injury time the away side were denied another try when the next attempt was deemed to have been held up.
Wirral remain five places from the bottom but have now created an eight-point cushion between themselves and Carlisle, who remain in the relegation places.