Ambleside..................29 Millom A.......................3 AMBLESIDE welcomed back captain Darren Todd for their home quarter-final against Millom A in the Storey Cumbria Shield League Cup.

Unforced errors led to a scrappy start but Ambleside's front row of 19-year-old Nick Lee, skipper Todd and consistent Paul Airey dominated the scrums.

Forceful runs from the forwards set up quick and clean ball and the backs began to cause Millom major problems. They moved up to the Millom 22, but found finishing hard. Millom's fly half kicked them out of trouble until they conceded a penalty from which Ambleside's players' player of the season Matt Read raced away to cross the line for 5-0.

From the restart the forwards made four hits and, with Nick Lee dummying the short ball, the backs went wide through six passes for wing Will Vaughan to dive over in the corner.

Millom's No. 10 then took on Ambleside almost single-handedly. Todd was knocked unconscious and fly-half Clynes given a burst lip. The Millom fly-half then made a couple of runs to move Millom up the field, forcing Ambleside to concede a penalty which he converted.

The No. 10 then tried one run too many and a collision with Ambleside's Kiwi centre Dan Parker made it his last contribution to the match.

Read then produced another moment of magic when he shot through a gap on the 22 and side-stepped the full back to give Ambleside a 19-3 half time lead.

The first 20 minutes of the second half was taken up by both teams exchanging pleasantries before Read again showed his class to complete his hat-trick finding a gap after a long pass from scrum-half Allistair Johnston.

A high tackle on Read then went unnoticed by the referee but not by Ambleside flanker Andy Brown, who earned himself 10 minutes rest for taking law enforcement into his own hands.

For the next 15 minutes Ambleside produced some of their best defence of the season despite the absence of big hitter Brown.

The game ended with yet another inspired moment as Read raced 70 metres up the touchline to score his fourth try of the game.

Ambleside men of the match were their flanking duo of Olli Harding and Brown.

The quarter-final victory has brought them a home semi-final tie tomorrow (Saturday) with St Benedict's. (2pm kick-off).