West Bowling 6, Thatto Heath Crusaders 42

Two late interception tries knocked the gloss off a battling West Bowling performance against National Conference Division One title favourites Thatto Heath at Bankfoot Oval.

The St Helens-based visitors took an early lead when centre Darren Woods cut inside to reach the whitewash, leaving full back Shaun Quinn an easy conversion.

But Bowling roared back with a barnstorming run from centre Trevor Stead which set up field position for prop forward Liam Martin to slip an offload to his supporting packman Mike Kite to dive over under the posts. Scrum half Steve Illingworth slotted over the extras to level the scores.

The Crusaders’ hefty pack showed their pedigree when second-row forward Mark Beech shook off three defenders to cross, soon followed by another effort from prop Andy Bailey. Quinn added a conversion to put them 16-6 up.

Illingworth hoisted a number of telling kicks which tested Thatto’s resolve and substitute forward Gareth Shepherd made his mark with a series of strong drives when he came off the bench just before the interval.

But second-bottom Bowling suffered a huge setback when Woods strolled into the corner on the restart for his brace and, despite a tremendous tackling stint from teenage hooker Sam Whitehouse and loose forward Simon Owen, the classy visitors went further ahead when substitute Alex Trumper took advantage of the overlap.

Bowling’s belligerent resistance practically came to an end when Kite was dismissed for comments made to the referee.

Second-row forward Sha Basha was unlucky when he broke clear, only to be penalised for not playing the ball correctly with the Thatto line at his mercy, before a blatant knock on was missed as centre Adam Walsh increased the margin in the Crusaders’ favour.

Bowling decided to throw caution to the wind and paid the price when a loose pass was intercepted on his own line by Woods, who put wingman Dave Sutton on a length-of-the-field run to the chalk.

The hosts then proved that lightning can strike twice in the same place when they staged a repeat in exactly the same spot and Sutton raced away once again for another gift.

Both tries were converted by scrum half Chris Frodsham to give a final total that did not reflect the true nature of what had been in the main a hard-fought encounter.