BATTLING Blackburn suffered a late defeat after a brave fightback against Vale of Lune proved to be all in vain.

The Ramsgreave Drive club were caught cold by visiting Vale who scored the game’s opening try with barely a minute on the clock before crossing for a second in the seventh minute.

Despite the early barrage, Burn managed to gather themselves and hit back with a try of their own on 13 minutes - and it was a try the Fijians would have been proud of.

They managed to keep the ball moving through countless number of hands before a clever offload from Dan Birkett resulted in hooker Danny Whitehead going over out wide to score.

Leon Fifield added the conversion.

Fifield then added a penalty to level the scores.

In an entertaining clash, Vale hit back and after one attack was halted just short of the tryline thanks to some great Blackburn defence, the visitors finally managed to squeeze over in the corner for their third try of the half.

But the scoring wasn’t done and two Fifield penalties gave Blackburn a 16-15 advantage at the break.

Blackburn were out of the blocks the quicker of the two teams in the second and Birkett scored a try on his debut after some good work from Cameron Boulter.

Fifiield failed with his conversion attemp but Blackburn now led 21-15.

But back came Vale to scored a push over try from a five metre scrum to earn the bonus point.

As the game entered the final 10 minutes Vale kept the pressure on the home side and another try took them into the lead.

As the minutes ticked away, despite their best efforts, Blackburn were pinned in their own half and were unable to make any inroads.

And in their attempt to win the game, they lost control of the ball and Vale gathered to score their sixth try to deny Burn a losing bonus point.