Millom 10 Leigh East 16 LEIGH East kept themselves in the National Conference Division One promotion hunt, but at no time in this drab and scrappy game did they look true championship material.

Instead they muddled their way to an unconvincing victory in a disjointed manner which belied their current status as Division One leaders. Still, victory at Millom never comes easy and looking on the plus side it was another two points to add to their title-chasing tally.

Millom tried hard but looked a poor side and once more East fell into the trap of giving their hosts far too much respect, lowering their standards to match those of their opponents.

Ideally East should have found the League's tail-enders easy pickings but instead they struggled all the way and at half time only led 8-6. Anthony Gredecki opened the scoring with a fourth minute penalty, levelled by Millom 10 minutes later.

Right on the half hour, centre Mick Redford used his powerful build to cross the whitewash, taking a pack of defenders with him. Gredecki added the goal. Millom closed the half with a spell of pressure on East's line which paid off with an unconverted try.

Millom levelled again 10 minutes into the second half before a superb pass from John Gunning put Redford into space and the centre went in for his second touchdown. Gredecki goaled to put East 14-8 up and the game petered out with the only other scores a penalty from either side.

John Gunning's distribution and prompting earned him the man of the match award with East's other key men being sub David Kay and second rower Dale Aldred.

East have a habit of under-performing against the less challenging sides so it should be a different story tomorrow when they travel to Dewsbury to take on fellow promotion hopefuls Shaw Cross.