Hensingham will be playing National Conference rugby next season after being accepted as new members of the competition’s Third Division.

They will be the fourth west Cumbrian club to be accepted into membership of the Conference, joining town rivals Kells, Wath Brow and Egremont for the 2019 season.

Those three neighbours are all involved in Premier Division rugby.

As newcomers to the National Conference – along with Heworth and Batley Boys - Hensingham will start off at the lowest tier, Division Three, which will have 14 clubs competing next season and is due to start in March.

A club official said: "It’s an exciting step and everyone at the club is looking forward to the challenge.

"The thought of playing National Conference has been there for a little while but we were all conscious that the club had to have solid foundations.

"There was a time when we were one of the strongest amateur rugby league clubs in the country but had fallen away and it’s taken time again to build back up to where we wanted to be.

"We were the last winners of the Cumbria Men’s league and then took the Iggesund Cumberland League’s Premier Division.

"But a crop of serious injuries to players in key positions last season cost us.

"If it was not for the fact that we had established a second-team, we would have been in real trouble when we suffered those injuries."

Ironically, Distington who took Hensingham’s title in the season just ended, also applied to join the National Conference but were turned down because they did not have a second-team or age-group structures within the club.

Lorraine de Graffe, secretary of the Iggesund Cumberland ARL, said: "We are chuffed to bits to have another Cumbrian team in the National Conference League.

"It just shows how strong rugby league is in our area.

"However, by the same token, we are gutted to have lost them from the Iggesund Cumberland ARL but we wish them all the very best in their new venture in the National Conference.

"We are confident that like Wath Brow, Kells and Egremont, they will hold their own in the NCL."