Barrow 21 Tyldesley 18: FOLLOWING last weekend's comfortable victory over Bury, Tyldesley RU travelled to the West Coast to face Barrow in a confident mood.

Despite a gluepot of a pitch, Tyldesley made all the early running with wingers Rick Pennington and Gary Corbett to the fore in the opening exchanges, however the Tyldesley forwards suddenly increased their intensity of their drives in open play and Barrow where soon on the back foot.

As happens when teams are under severe pressure a mistake by the attacking side is normally punished and when Tyldesley turned the ball over on the Barrow 22 the home side moved the ball wide to score a converted try in the corner. Tyldesley responded with a Mark Dickinson penalty and almost immediately the Tyldesley pack drove towards the line where lock Lee West was on hand to power his way over for a try. With the conversion missed Tyldesley now led by one point but that was soon increased when a sweeping flank to flank passing movement was

finished off by New Zealander Andrew Simpson who popped up on the left wing to score.

The home side replied straight away with another converted try and went in at the break 14-13 ahead despite the domination of Tyldesley side throughout the first half.

The second period had Tyldesley once again make good yardage but some unforced errors and the usual interesting interpretation on the laws by a Cumbrian official began to stifle the attacking options of the visitors. A good 10 minutes of pressure camped on the Barrow line brought a try for centre Andrew Dickinson after younger brother Mark had made space and with a quarter of the game left Tyldesley led 18-14.

Watching crowd

Then followed one of the most farcical things seen by many of the watching crowd and players for many a year. Once again Tyldesley camped out on the Barrow line and after the forwards had sucked the defensive cover in on the left the ball was passed out to Mark Dickinson who's trademark shimmy took him home under the post to touchdown. With the Tyldesley players and supporters celebrating and the Barrow defensive line beaten a Barrow player kicked the ball away in disgust, this was followed by the official shouting "play on". The first person to react was the Barrow wing who quickly fly-hacked the ball into touch for a lineout the Tyldesley players then demonstrated with the official who's only comment was he did not see the ball grounded. It was scant consolation afterwards that the Barrow players to a man admitted the try had been scored.

The incident seemed to take the wind out of the Tyldesley players and Barrow marched up the park to break through some lacklustre tackling to score another converted try for a 21-18 lead which they held onto for the final 10 minutes of the game. For Tyldesley it was a case of just one of those days where you play well but loose, with all

the other sides around them losing Tyldesley actually strengthened their seventh place in the league. Next up are Fleetwood who visit St George's Park on March 1 for a game that kicks off at 2.30pm.

Tyldesley Dragons faced a Newton-le-Willows XV who included several First XV players and in a close game they went down 14-8. Tyldesley's points came courtesy of Jamie Aldred try and Fraser Mackintosh penalty.

Tyldesley Knights fought out a 12-12 draw at Trafford in game they could and should have won.