Leigh Miners Rangers 32, Wigan St Pat's 32: THE spoils were shared between the two local rivals as subsititute Jon Thornhill held his nerve to pot a late penalty after the Miners had put themselves on the verge of an unlikely victory.
Trailing 26-12 at the break and having blown a 12-4 lead, the Miners looked dead and buried, but stunned St Pat's with 20 unanswered points before a late try and an even later penalty, gave Pat's the draw.
Indeed the visitors even had chances to win the match in stoppage time as Darren Fletcher saw two drop goals drift wide, but defeat would have been hard on the Miners.
The Leigh side looked set for a comfortable afternoon when they flew into a 12-4 lead with centre Alan Redicliffe first sending in teenage winger Sean Daly, then breaking through for Tommy Goulden to score by the posts. In between Paul Egan had narrowed the deficit, but Pat's were going nowhere until Aussie hooker Deon Duell took the game by the scruff of the neck and gave his team a big lead.
First he held up play for Matt Peet to crash over and then he put Pat's in front when he dived on his own grubber kick. A fine passing move put Steve Simm in down the left wing and in stoppage time Egan burst in off Carl Jones' drine to put Pat's 26-12 up.
A comeback seemed unlikely but within two minutes Daley was in off Redicliffe's burst and the Miners were firing again. Dead-eye kicker Dave Radley, who kicked from both wings with unblemished success, notched a penalty and then scored a try of his own to level the scores.
Pat's were rattled and when Fletcher was sin-binned the Miners used the extra man to get Redicliffe striding in from half way.
But Pat's launched a revival and with time ticking by they scored when Simm snatched Fletcher's kick out of the grasp of Steve Warburton to score. Thornhill missed the conversion but kept his nerve tie up the scores with a last gasp penalty.
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