West Bowling 24 Oldham St Annes 12

Prop forward Phil Chappell was in devastating form as he posted two power tries to guide West Bowling to a badly-needed two points in the National Conference Premier against bottom-of-the-table Oldham St Annes at the Bankfoot Oval.

Bowling started off clearly meaning business as centre Tim Sutcliffe failed to hold a difficult pass with the line at his mercy and scrum half Danny Ramsden cut inside with a three-man overlap screaming for a pass.

It took the strength and skill of Chappell to start the scoreboard ticking when he started a move with an offload in his own half to Sutcliffe.

He in turn fed wingman Mick Derrick, who sprinted clear. Up popped Chappell on his inside to collect and make a thunderous charge to the whitewash from 30 metres out.

Wests produced a planned ploy with a run around between stand-off Peter Simpson and full back Martin Tordoff to enable Ramsden to put Derrick in at the corner.

But the visitors roared downfield to set up the platform for scrum half Grant Bethell to side-step his way under the posts.

Second-row forward Chris Conway added the extra two, leaving all to play for at 8-6.

Ramsden, not to be outdone by his opposite number, brought loose forward Sha Basha onto a peach of a pass as Bowling edged further in front.

But when Simpson went high, Conway slotted over the penalty.

When St Annes in turn failed to keep the tackles low, Sutcliffe took advantage to brush the defence aside to saunter to the posts and Simpson added his first conversion.

The game-breaker came just two minutes from the interval when St Annes wingman John Gillam foolishly lashed out in the tackle while in possession. From the tap and run, Simpson dummied and dropped a pass to find Chappell on the charge for his second.

Simpson duly added the extras to put a confident Bowling into the sheds 24-8 up.

Oldham rallied briefly on the restart when a long kick held up over the try line and wingman Ben Mayers won the foot race to touch down.

Bowling brought back talisman Glenn Barraclough to steady the ship from the ruck, which he did admirably with the bulky support of forwards Andrew Senior and Paul Hutchinson.

Victory takes them out of the relegation zone and three points clear of their nearest rivals Wath Brow.