West Park 20 Stockport 8 IN contrast to recent meetings with Stockport which have produced entertaining, high-scoring games, Saturday's encounter proved to be a scrappy affair with both sides struggling to maintain continuity and not helped by frequent stoppages and penalty awards totalling 35 in all.

The referee allowed little advantage and thus the game never flowed. West Park no doubt remembering their only league defeat at Stockport last October adopted a more cautious approach and after establishing a 17-8 lead at the interval took no chance in the second half securing the two league points to maintain their four-point lead at the top of North Two.

Carl Bibby made good ground from a kick and some brilliant handling involving several players resulted in a try for Park skipper Sean Fletcher. Andrew Sontar missed the conversion but added the goal to Phil Houlton's try which came after a charge-down by Steve Bibby and a 25-metre burst to the line.

Stockport came more into the game and after almost scoring through scrum-half Colin Campbell, their big left winger Dave Haesler barged over. The conversion was wide and only a great tackle by Gary Monaghan prevented another Stockport try, Haesler again posing the threat. Park were defending well but could not prevent visitors' fly-half Louis Marx from reducing the deficit still further with a penalty for offside.

Park at last broke the developing stalemate with another 10-man handling move which led to Martin Strett scoring just before half-time to close an opening 40 minutes much punctuated by penalty awards in the ratio of 10 to four in favour of the visitors.

Stockport second-row Chris Nevett went into the sin-bin for persistent infringement early in the second half but strong pressure by Park failed to bring any further points. Park prop Tony Green suffered a head injury in a scrum collapse and went off to hospital, Ross Bell coming on as replacement as Gary Monaghan, Park's man of the match, set up a penalty chance for Sontar who duly obliged in the 20th minute of the second half.

However the 'stop-start' pattern of play continued bringing no further addition to the score. Apart from Monaghan, who had an outstanding match, Park were best served by flankers Chris Pennington and Phil Houlton.