West Bowling 26, Morley Borough 16

TWO tries from second-row forward Jack Milburn put West Bowling on course for a welcome home Pennine League win after a second-half wobble against Morley Borough at Emsley's Rec.

Bowling found themselves under siege in the opening exchanges of the Championship Division contest before loose forward Dan Gregory plucked the ball out of the air to intercept on his own line and race 60 metres downfield.

He then handed on to supporting scrum half Ben Heald, who sprinted under the uprights to leave full back Liam Coe an easy conversion.

Morley prop Ryan Goblin was dispatched to the sin-bin after a crude challenge, allowing opposite number Chris Anderson to take advantage of the extra man to brush three defenders aside on a powerhouse run.

He offloaded to fellow packman Richard Lumb, who crashed over the whitewash at the side of the sticks ensuring Coe the chance to add full reward.

The winless visitors were handed a gift when Bowling conceded a penalty for talking out of turn to the referee, giving hooker Ben Dean the chance to pick up and run in from the ruck. Scrum half Tyson Speight slotted over the extras.

Bowling made amends for their indiscretion when a sweeping cross-field passing move found Milburn lurking with intent out wide in the three-quarters.

He duly stepped inside to make the chalk and Coe added his third conversion to put the hosts into the sheds 18-6 up.

West's made a tactical blunder on the restart by deciding to take on the heavy Morley pack down the middle and found themselves in trouble when visiting centre Nathan Hammond hacked on to win a footrace to the try line.

The alarm bells really started to chime shortly afterwards when Borough prop Dave Parker spun out of a tackle to plant the ball at the uprights for a converted touchdown to close the gap to 18-16.

But Bowling at last remembered the game plan and started to ship the ball in style – and they were duly rewarded when stand-off Max Trueman sold a slow dummy to fool the visitors' defence out wide.

At 22-16 the game was far from over but the experience and influence of veteran forward Sha Basha steadied the mid-table hosts' endeavours.

This resulted in a telling fast attack that saw Milburn collect a difficult pass which bounced of his chest, leaving him to collect the rebound and dive over to put the result beyond any doubt.