West Park 24 Altrincham Kersal 5 THIS meeting with third place Altrincham Kersal, while far from a classic encounter, lived up to expectations in regard to excitement and hard-hitting rugby.

AK came closest to lowering Park's unbeaten colours last season with a 15-15 draw at Stelfox Avenue and a 21-20 result at Red Rocks.

Good play by the league's top try scorer Steven Briers led to an early penalty miss and after a Chris O'Toole break had fizzled out Phil Houlton -- called back from Nottingham when regular number eight Steve Bibby was ruled out and his usual replacement Rob Hanson was unavailable -- was stopped a yard short. Neil Ryan put in a fine 40-yard touchfinder only for Altrincham to come back to within five yards of the home line from a penalty award, the position relieved by a fine 60 yard passing movement.

Another penalty and another 10-yard line-out for AK was cleared and after a good drive by Park, a penalty to touch and yet more pressure led to Glen Fletcher kicking a penalty to open the scoring.

The visitors' number six, Geoff Larkin was sin-binned and Park applied even more pressure on the AK line but lost the advantage due to indiscipline. From a subsequent scrum on the halfway line handling by Altrincham brought a corner flag try by winger John Inman after 28 minutes.

A deliberate knock-on spoiled a Park scoring chance but Fletcher was wide with the resultant penalty. Unfortunately, at this point an increasing amount of niggle in the game boiled over into an unseemly melee with Park's flanker Chris Pennington being the unlucky player to be picked out from any number of offenders to be sent for the proverbial early bath.

Although Park had reached the AK try line on no fewer than four occasions they had conceded a penalty and lost the advantage in the first half.

However, Park made light of their reduced numbers and a set-up by the forwards and superb handling led to a fine finish by Martin Strett to put Park 8-5 up after just three minutes of the second half.

After another fine move Fletcher kicked a touchline penalty as Altrincham hooker Dominic Makenzie went to the sin-bin to temporarily, at least, even the numbers. Fletcher added another 40-yard penalty as Ross Bell replaced Alex Atherton at prop.

Another O'Toole break almost brought a try but a third Fletcher penalty increased the lead to 17-5. Some fine relieving kicks by Ryan and more good work by the pack allowed slick handling to send Glen Fletcher over at the corner flag, the winger's touchline conversion bringing his personal tally to 19 points.

Although Phil Houlton, playing out of position at number eight, was man of the match a fine performance by the highly-promising Mark Williams made him a close second.

On Saturday Park visit bottom-of-the-table Widnes, who will, however, still provide stiff opposition in the derby match tradition.