RAMPANT Cape steeled themselves with memories of last week's heavy defeat to Port Sunlight before taking to the pitch on Saturday.

A more committed performance all over the park was required and that is exactly what the hosts delivered.

Knutsford had a big pack but Capenhurst's experience showed.

After 10 minutes of fairly even play, a scrum five metres from the Knutsford line provided Cape's first scoring chance. Knutsford's tight-head prop caused the scrum to collapse five times so the referee awarded a penalty try to Cape and the conversion was put over by Paul Fay.

Shortly after Cape were awarded a penalty for infringing on the scrum by the Knutsford scrum-half and again Fay's kick was straight and true.

After 25 minutes, Knutsford's hooker took offence to some physical work by lock forward Dave Latham and the resulting punch up cost both men 10 minutes apiece in the sin-bin. At half-time Cape were 10-0 up.

The second half saw more of the same from both sides with a great try coming from Keith Simpson, who crashed through two tackles to touch down. Another conversion made it 17-0 and Paul Thornelow and Paul Murphy came on to replace the second row for the home side.

Another penalty was scored to put the game effectively beyond Knutsford but, with five minutes left, they crashed the ball over from a penalty five metres out and converted to make it 20-7. The result saw Cape move up to sixth in the South Lancs/Cheshire Four table with two games in hand.

n In the EDF Junior Vase on Saturday, Ellesmere Port lost 28-13 to Lancashire club Garstang.

It was an heroic performance from a young Port side including debutants Peter Doyle, Ben Payn, Dave Collins and Nathan Price. Although the new boys put up some valiant resistance and showed promise for the future, they could not prevent Port's elimination.