West Park Bramhope 6 Chester 27

AFTER a humiliating 100-point defeat at Chester in November, West Park again feared the worst from the return match, but to their credit they showed tremendous spirit and enthusiasm to deny their promotion bound visitors the massive victory they imagined would be a formality.

The first 15 minutes saw a stalemate as Park thwarted the big Chester pack. With pressure mounting the home side cracked as the scrum half scored wide out. A clean break from Jason Whitehead went unrewarded when he took the wrong option and was tackled by the full-back.

With skipper Ian Moule leading the pack by example and Joel Whitehead cleaning up the loose balls it was a slight surprise when good handling by Chester led to their second converted try. Richard Lye and Ben Chadwick were providing ample ball for the three-quarters and with the visitors on the rack Chadwick popped over two quick penalties to reduce the deficit to only six points at the interval.

Another try and penalty early in the half stretched the lead but with Brendan French brave at full-back Chester became frustrated at the inability to rack up the points. Park, although never really threatening a try, held out with great courage until a late try finished off the scoring.

Although the club has been written off by some critics the passion and pride on view was a joy to see and with no relegation this season Park can now regroup and look forward to a healthier future, starting at Vale of Lune on Saturday.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.