West Bowling 4, Rochdale Mayfield 22

West Bowling’s hopes of avoiding relegation from National Conference League Division One suffered what will probably be a terminal setback after just 90 seconds against fellow basement dwellers Rochdale Mayfield at the Bankfoot Oval yesterday.

In a match which was worth ‘four’ points to both sides, West’s made a horror start when Mayfield moved the ball smartly to the right-hand side to find acres of space.

Centre Ian Sampson raced clear and feed his wingman Ian Foy, who cantered under the uprights, leaving loose forward Aidy Gleeson a simple conversion.

Matters took a further turn for the worse when, following another sortie, visiting hooker Todd O’Brien took advantage of slack marking to pick up and go from acting half to score what will probably be the easiest try of his career.

Once again, Gleeson added the extras to ease the Rochdale side comfortably ahead.

Bowling then started to make a fist of things, with a number of hefty contributions from prop forward Liam Martin and stand-off Simon Owen but just when they appeared to be steadying the ship, two missed tackles centrefield led to Mayfield hacking the ball on and full back Bob Kershaw racing through to win the race to touch down.

Gleeson made no mistake with the conversion and when West’s hooker Sam Whitehouse broke clear, he lacked support in what was a golden chance to reduce the arrears.

Bowling’s task on the re-start was simple one – they had to score first and quickly.

They put the Mayfield red zone under siege but it was more a case of using the bludgeon rather than the rapier, with one-man raids being consistently snuffed out by a well-drilled defence.

Gleeson slotted over a penalty when the hosts went too high in the tackle before Bowling at last got some reward for all their efforts entering the final quarter.

Wingman Adam Crompton, who played his socks off throughout, just failed to pounce on a grubber kick and, from the drop-out, Owen pinned his ears back to fall inches short of the whitewash.

Scrum half Steve Illingworth scooped up the ball from the ruck and spotted a gap on the blindside to put centre Jacob Galtress over in the corner.

It was, however, only a consolation prize as Mayfield worked their way up field to land a last-gasp penalty to ensure a well-deserved victory.