Easter 2006 saw Hornets turn in two contrasting performances: Good Friday's convincing win over Oldham the Doctor Jeckyl to Easter Monday's Hyde-horror show at Whitehaven.

In a scrappy game punctuated by pedantic refereeing, Hornets managed to swat aside Oldham's cursory resistance without really getting out of first gear.

While it's clear that Oldham have made strides in the last few weeks, Hornets' steady methodical approach proved too complex for Steve Deakin's side to fathom. After a bright start, Oldham fell asleep on ten minutes - just long ennough for Phil Cantillon to scamper fully 50 metres to open Hornets' account. Additional tries from Lee 'Pogo' Patterson (running off a wide pass from Tommy Goulden) and Chris Giles took the game away from the Roughyeds; their only response of the first half a Barber penalty.

And it was Tommy Goulden who grabbed a try for himself after 50 minutes - exploiting the slow recovery of an Oldham player with a knock. Steve Deakin took exception to this and his unwanted advice to the officials saw him dispatched to the stand.

Two late Oldham tries gave the scoreline a air of respectability, but it was Cantillon again who had the last word; scooting through a tired defence to see Hornets home 28-10.

Buoyed up by the win, a vociferous Hornets following made the long trawl to West Cumbria - only to see their expectations sunk by an awful first half showing. Having seen significant uphill pressure come to nought, Hornets were hit with a barrage of Haven sucker punches. Falling foul of referee Mr Leahey's somewhat freestyle interpretation of the laws, Hornets were dealt an object lesson in how to turn pressure into points. Basically, four atacks yielded four tries and Hornets went in at the break 24-nil down.

Having obviously had the rocket up 'em at half time, Hornets decided that they wanted to play. Phil Cantillon poached a try two minutes after the restart; then Pogo Patterson snaffled one. Suddenly, we had a game on our hands. It took an even more fortuitous twist just before the hour when 'Haven's Mark Jackson punched Chris Glies to the floor in the tackle then continued to rain blows down as he lay on the floor. He was summarily dispatched and Hornets had a chink of light: 22 minutes remaining, 12 points behind - against 12 men.

Hornets raised them pace and it paid dividends; working the ball downfield for a well worked try by James Bunyan.

Then - at 24-18 with Whitehaven out on their feet - the wheels came off. Twice in five minutes Chris Giles coughed the ball on the first tackle 20 metres from the Hornets line. From the resulting scrums, 'Haven employed swift hands to score carbon copy overlap tries in the corner; both superbly converted. The game gone.

Hornets did have the last say with a late, poached 'send 'em home p*ssed off' try from Phil Cantillon, but it was a token effort in a game that was lost in a shocking first 40 minutes.