YORK Acorn's hopes of any glory in the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup ended abruptly at the first- stage when they were comprehensively beaten 32-16 at home by a well-drilled Askam side who dominated from start to finish.

The Cumbrians were well up for the contest, and it showed in both attack and defence, where they were more enthusiastic then their hosts and, on the back of a very favourable penalty count, weren't likely to let victory slip from their grasp at any stage.

The crucial period of the game came at the start of the second half, when the visitors turned a 14-4 interval lead into a match-winning 26-4 by virtue of two quickfire converted scores.

Acorn's performance in truth was poor with a capital P, especially with regards to ball control and general discipline, which played perfectly into the visitors' hands in terms of possession.

Having said all that, Acorn actually scored first, when, on four minutes, stand-off Anthony Chilton produced a trademark grubber kick from within their 20-metre zone and reacted quickest to score an unconverted try.

Askam responded three minutes later when their full back Kristian Tyson side-stepped his way for an equalising score, and they took the lead on 13 minutes when Acorn winger Josh Thompson misjudged a high ball and winger Thomas Askew raced in for another unconverted try.

Within minutes, the high-ball curse returned to haunt Acorn once more.

This time Acorn's other winger Brandon Harris was the guilty party and Askam second-rower Thomas Hopkins was on hand to score an unconverted try and put the vibrant visitors 12-4 in front.

Several times Askam nearly increased their lead via Acorn's soft left-edge defence, only for errors on the final pass to let them down.

Askam did manage to increase their lead on 35 minutes, but it came via a Kristian Tyson penalty from in front of the sticks.

Any hopes that Acorn had of turning the game round were ruefully ended right at the start of the second half,

On 41 minutes, Askam took full advantage of a static Acorn defensive line, allowing scrum half Keir Shepherd to finish off a move after a chip over from stand-off Joe Satterthwaite had initially unlocked Acorn's defensive line.

Kristian Tyson's goal made it 20-4, and the double whammy came three minutes later when neat Satterthwaite footwork opened the hosts' left-edge defence, and allowed supporting centre Mark Tyson to take the inside pass and score a try that was converted by his brother Kristian to put the rampant visitors 26-4 ahead.

Acorn's plight wasn't helped on 60 minutes, when they had Thompson sin-binned for verbally abusing a touch judge.

Six minutes later, a flighted cross-field kick by scrum half Matthew Chilton ended with Harris touching down for a try which Anthony Chilton added the extras to, making it 26-10.

Almost immediately, however, Acorn were exposed in defence as the ball was switched from one side to the other before eventually finding centre Jake Sledding in space and he calmly crossed unopposed close to the posts, with Kristian Tyson rounding off their scoring with the kick.

On 70 minutes, Acorn responded when a neat Joe Budd kick out wide was gleefully grounded by Matthew Woods – one of their best players in a game where very few positives could be taken - and improved by Anthony Chilton.

Acorn's stand-out performers were their man of the match, powerhouse centre Matthew Downes, who tackled out of his skin, as did second-rower Woods, and both were willing runners in an out-of-sorts attack.

Another to give a reasonable showing for Acorn was Aussie prop forward Nathan Welsh.

Key performers for the visitors were their man of the match, loose forward Thomas Wilkinson, and the Tyson brothers.