Eccles & Salford 22 West Bowling 10

National Conference Premier Division side West Bowling's hopes of reaching the final of the Ace National Cup in May came to an untimely end against Division One outfit Eccles in one of the few first-round ties that beat the big chill.

Coach Richard Heseltine was fuming after a poor performance that saw them deservedly dumped out of the amateur game's top competition at the first hurdle.

He said: "We dominated play for most of the game and still ended up losing.

"I am very disappointed with the result after the way we have been playing lately. We had two tries disallowed in the first half but to blame the ref for our awful display would be a cop-out."

Bowling took the lead with a Lee Innes penalty and looked to be cruising to round two when he added a similar effort to close the half just 6-4 in arrears after bossing the proceedings.

The two disallowed tries merely added to the mistaken belief that all would come right in the wash.

Innes hit the uprights with a penalty bang on the restart but the hosts, against all the odds, turned on the style to ease in front 14-4.

Bowling at last got the message and muscled up to peg Eccles into their home red zone, which eventually bore fruit when hooker Nathan Hadfield scored out wide to leave Innes the chance to convert a beauty from the touchline side.

At 14-10 it was all to play for, with Bowling establishing a stranglehold in home territory for what seemed an eternity, but a speculative drop goal proved to be a monumental disaster when Eccles collected to sweep downfield to send Mike O'Boyle in between the sticks.

Over went the conversion, which was soon followed by a long distance penalty to leave Bowling once more with egg on their faces.

Their cup fighting credentials will need to be overhauled with a potential money-spinning tie in the Carnegie Challenge Cup on the horizon following their bye into the next round.

A bitterly disappointed Heseltine has taken the bull firmly by the horns by calling in the squad for extra training over the Christmas holiday period.

West Bowling: Ramsden, Crompton, Buckley, Stead, Innes, Illingworth, Whitehouse, Senior, Hadfield, Martin, Summers Simpson, Helliwell. Substitutes: White, Curtain, Shepherd, Hutchinson.