West Bowling 18 Doncaster Toll Bar 25

A FRUITLESS first-half display was too big a hurdle to overcome as a gallant Bowling fightback ended in defeat in the President's Cup final clash against Doncaster Toll Bar at the Fox’s Biscuit Stadium, Batley.

West’s made a rocky start against the Donny side and were grateful to see full back Karl Robinson make a superb tackle, man and ball, on wingman Shaun Carey in the corner.

The relief was short-lived, however, when the Toll Bar hooker Kieran Cross burrowed his way to the whitewash, leaving stand-off Shaun Roberts an easy conversion.

More grief quickly followed when prop Wayne Rafferty found acres of space at the side of the sticks and Rafferty once more obliged with the extras.

A powerful plunge from second-row forward Karl Mills ensured a half-time 18-0 scoreline but with West’s now having use of the infamous slope on the restart hopes were still a viable prospect.

A long sweeping passing move saw centre Jack Milburn open the Bowling account and scrum half Ben Heald made sure of full reward but they shot themselves in the foot almost immediately when they failed to find touch from a penalty award, leaving the Doncaster side to sweep up field for Mills to claim his brace.

The best move of the game came when loose forward Richard Lumb found stand-off Max Trueman, who drew the Toll Bar full back Steve Mills perfectly to send Heald scampering under the posts.

He then added the extras himself to put the result back in the melting pot.

Bowling gained another helpful advantage when Cross was given the red card after a throttle tackle on Richard Lumb. They took a quick tap and run to put prop Chris Anderson on an unstoppable charge to the chalk and Heald added the conversion to close the gap to 24-18.

Toll Bar, to their credit, did not panic and worked the play nicely to set up the chance for scrum half Adam Jones to slot over a drop goal to dash any evaporating Bowling hopes of collecting a cup for the second week on the trot.