A RECORD crowd for their Russell Way ground of over 1,000 watched Brighouse Rangers give Toronto Wolfpack's trialists the sternest of tests before the Canadian side edged home 28-26.

Only a late breakaway try from Nathan Campbell gave a mud-splattered Wolfpack select team, who have been nicknamed 'Benetton' by their coaching staff as their players have come from Jamaica, Canada and the United States, the spoils.

Having only had four training sessions in under a week gave Wolfpack, who will be based at Rangers when they are in the United Kingdom, a disadvantage for their first-ever match on a chilly afternoon and they made a glut of handling errors to go in at half-time trailing 16-12.

Elusive scrum half Ben Drennan set the ball rolling for Rangers when he ran around the blindside of a scrum to score in the fourth minute.

Former Halifax junior Connor Clayton hit back for Toronto nine minutes later, darting through from dummy half, but Rangers responded with tries by impressive centre Liam Stead and Gavin Midgley, Jamie Barraclough adding two conversions to stretch the lead to 16-6.

Then 17-year-old half-back Quinn Ngawati, from Vancouver, leapt to pluck a pin-point Matt Walsh kick out of the air to score in the 36th minute before adding his second successful conversion.

But Rangers, whose 20 included 18 products of their junior section, took charge in the second half to add tries by 17-year-old Louie Sweeney, after a fine Stead offload, and full back Karl Frankland, who hacked on and chased down Drennan's initial kick.

Trailing by three scores at 26-12, Wolfpack hit back with efforts by Terence Williams on the right, after good work by full back Sterling Wynn, and Casey Clark in the corner either side of the hour mark – and it needed a great goal-line tackle by winger Reece Bray and Drennan to prevent a third try by the resurgent tourists.

But this only delayed the final Toronto try as, with barely five minutes left, winger Tye Elkins intercepted in his own half and slipped past two defenders.

He was helped by centre Marcus Satavu before replacement Campbell took over from 40 metres out, breaking two tackles and slipping the last defender before swallow-diving under the posts for Ngawati to easily convert and break Brighouse hearts.

Barraclough landed three goals out of six for Rangers but most of them were difficult.

Man of the match for Rangers was 17-year-old forward Cameron Bailey, who played for the whole match not knowing he had broken his jaw after half an hour.

Game star for Toronto was prop Chad Bain, best known in these parts for playing union with Bradford Salem, but he was pushed hard by Walsh, who schemed well in difficult conditions.

Earlier in the day, the senior Wolfpack squad played a semi-opposed game against Halifax and finished winners by four tries to two, after trailing by two tries to nil.

Brighouse Rangers: Karl Frankland; Reece Bray, Sam Hardcastle, Liam Stead, Louie Sweeney; Jamie Barraclough, Ben Drennan; Lee Robson (captain), Troy Ambler, Cameron Bailey, Gavin Midgley, Ben Waud, Ben Wrightson. Interchange (all used): Jordan Sild, Anton Ambler, Richie McGade, Liam Pitman, Eddie Tankard, Harry Masterman, Paul Fairhirst.

Toronto Wolfpack Trialists XIII: Sterling Wynn; Tye Elkins, Marcus Satavu, Terence Williams, Kenneth Walker; Quinn Ngawati, Matt Walsh (captain), Chad Bain, Connor Clayton, Corrie Knox, Joe Eichner, Casey Clark, Tyronie Rowe. Interchange (all used): Emil Borggren, Nathan Campbell, Mark Gaddis, Andrew Zuluaga, Antonio Baker.

Referee: Chris Campbell.