Northwich 32

Blackburn 32

BLACKBURN fought from 32-22 down to salvage a draw in a topsy turvy clash at Northwich.

Dino Radice saw his side’s three match winning run in North West One halted but he was thankful to late tries from Josh Reilly and Jamie Brookes to save his team from defeat.

In a pulsating clash, Burn stormed to a 14-0 lead before they were pegged back by the hosts who led 19-17 at the break.

While Blackburn briefly regained the lead early in the second half, Northwich took full advantage of two sin binnings to Corey Logan and Ed Sinclair to open up a 10-point lead to move to the brink of victory.

But Blackburn, who have not lost since the opening day defeat on the Isle of Man responded with two unconverted tries but then survived as the home side fluffed a drop goal situation with the last play of the game that would have secured victory.

Burn got off to a flying start with two tries in the opening 10 minutes.

The first started with a catch and drive in the Northwich 22. The drive stalled but the ball was spread wide where Jack Swarbrick offloaded to Josh Reilly who then passed to Frank Nickson who went over.

The second try was a good team effort. Nickson made good yards down the nearside touch line and his pass back inside was taken by Swarbrick. After he was brought down, Wilf Whittle had a charge before eventually Marc Maher got his hands on the ball who chipped and chased his own kick to score.

Both tries were converted by Alex Taylorson and Blackburn led 14-0.

But Northwich responded with a spell of sustained pressure on the 20 minute mark resulting with a catch and drive to crash over from five metres out.

Just four minutes later, the home side went over for a second try and with both conversions successful, it was all square.

By the half hour mark Northwich were ahead, another catch and drive took them over the line, this time the conversion was missed.

Burn hit back with a Taylorson penalty and they trailed 19-17 at half time.

Just like the first half, Burn started the second half well and scored in the opening minutes through Oli Yates which went unconverted.

But Blackburn were then very nearly the architects of their own downfall.

They began to give away too many penalties, before Logan was yellow carded for a deliberate knock on then Sinclair followed him in to the sin bin and Burn were down to 13 men.

From the resulting penalty Northwich kicked to tie the scores again.

The home side added further points while Burn were depleted to 13 after good offloads and quick hands saw them score their fourth try and with the extras added, they went 29-22 up.

Another penalty on the hour mark made it 32-22 and Blackburn had it all to do.

But once back up to their full compliment, the visitors managed to spark back into life.

A fourth try arrived in the 70th minute when Swarbrick and then Logan made the hard yards before Reilly did superbly to gather a stray pass that went behind him to turn and dive to score in the corner.

The conversion was narrowly missed but Burn were now on top and a fifth try soon followed.

Having kept the ball, Burn made their way up to the Northwich 22. Logan then broke through tackles before finding Sam Gale. He was brought down just short but the ball was recycled and spread wide where Brookes was able to score in the corner.

The kicked was missed and in the last play, Northwich messed up a drop goal opportunity from 35 metres out and it ended all square.