"In the 20 years that I have been coaching club rugby, I cannot remember a more thoroughly depressing day than Saturday's bitter experience at Macclesfield.

There have been better opponents and heavier defeats, but never occasions when the black and amber team has succumbed so meekly, and with so little resolution.

Macclesfield is a thriving club, with excellent facilities and legitimate ambition. In their second season in the National League, they were thoroughly competent, workmanlike and clearly smarting from their opening defeat at Fylde.

Of all of these qualities, it was undoubtedly their desire to optimise their performance in which the gulf between the teams was greatest.

Their teamwork was in sharp contrast to the disjointed individual efforts that increasingly characterised the Kendal effort as the game wore on.

There is no doubt that a boxing referee would have halted the contest on humanitarian grounds when the visitors had lost their appetite for the fight.

There were ominous signs early in the game. With fully 77 minutes remaining, our patched together scrummage was unceremoniously shunted off its own ball, and a long afternoon ahead threatened.

The home team set about our lineout with all the ingenuity of car thieves, and although there was improvement from the previous week in this department, it was a far from reliable source of possession.

Given the scarcity, and quality, of our primary possession, it was doubly disappointing that we treated what we had with such cavalier disregard for its safety.

Aimless punts gave Macclesfield the ball with time and space to counter-attack - an invitation to which they readily responded - and carelessness in contact led to a series of turnovers.

The result was that poss-ession felt decidedly temp-orary, leading to a frenetic attempt to score in one phase with every use of the ball, which usually deteriorated into an unsightly version of pass the parcel.

It is easy for a team to look poor when it has no confidence in its capacity to retain the ball, and to win it back again.

Having worked our way back into the game as half time approached at only 13-6, there was the faint hope that the worst might be over, and a disbelief that things could be as bad after the interval.

Optimism proved cruelly unfounded. In the key five minutes following the re-start, we had been reduced to 14 men and conceded seven points. The contest was over, and the Kendal team was a sorry sight behind the posts.

A disappointing number of the home team's tries came directly through missed individual tackles.

The resolution, commun- ication and determination of the previous week's almost impenetrable defence was absent without leave, and only the colour of the jerseys was recognisable from that encouraging and valiant opening effort.

Having given away the momentum of the first Saturday, the next few weeks offer a challenge that may well define the season.

In adversity of this nature, self inflicted or otherwise, the character, resolve and commitment of any team is tested to the limit.

It is the fascination of team games.The way this challenge is met is the definition of the character of those involved. The sleeves, I hope, are being rolled up.