West Bowling 0, Castleford Lock Lane 16

WEST Bowling fought tooth and nail before departing exiting in the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup first round against National Conference giants Castleford Lock Lane at Emsley's Rec.

It was the visitors who struck the first blow after some lively opening exchanges as second-row forward Danny Lidbury disregarded any pretence of finesse by barging his way to the chalk from ten metres out to leave scrum half Danny Rowse a simple conversion.

Bowling then gifted Lock Lane a further six points when they failed to kill the ball following a knock-on in their red zone, allowing stand-off Nathan Fozzard the opportunity to hack on and touch down near enough the uprights for Rowse to once again add the full reward.

When the visitors were caught offside, full back Max Trueman took a quick tap to sprint 40 metres. His precision pass created a huge gap out wide but the ball went to ground with the line tantalisingly open.

Bowling again looked to have clawed their way back into contention when stand-off Liam Coe kicked over the defence, enabling substitute forward Dan Gregory to win the race to the whitewash. But his fine effort was ruled out by the touch judge, who judged that he was offside.

Packman Jason Marshall closed the half by being denied inches short as the Castleford side held on to change ends 12-0 to the good.

West's once more came desperately close on the restart when loose forward Richard Lumb failed to take a difficult offload from hooker Danny Halmshaw at the side of the posts.

This was soon followed by another glorious maybe when Trueman was on the end of a clever passing interchange, only to see the final transfer once more hit the deck.

The loss of influential prop forward Chris Anderson with a leg injury caused a home reshuffle but it did not blunt his packmates' resolve – led by Ryan Patchett, who was easily the best forward on the field, making huge inroads into the Castleford ranks.

A clear sign that it was not going to be Bowling's day was when Lumb was held up over the line to prevent him touching down, soon followed by a huge snowstorm sweeping down the field into their faces.

The last hurrah went to Lock Lane just before the final hooter when hooker Calum Butler collected a kick through to race downfield and massage a winning total that did little to reflect Bowling's huge efforts.