Crosfields recover from half-time deficit to record narrow win over high-flying Drighlington

CROSFIELDS tightened their grip on the National Conference League Division Three leadership with a hard-fought victory against a well-drilled Drighlington side pushing hard for promotion themselves.

Soap, playing their first game since the June 6 victory over Rylands, were understandably rusty and started poorly against a visiting outfit fired up looking to avenge the earlier season defeat against Tony Benson's men.

Inside the opening 2 minutes, a knock on allowed the visitors possession inside the home 10 metre area and the resulting pressure led to an opening try out wide for Dan Sanderson.

The rhythm the home crowd have been used to seeing was not on display in a first half littered with mistakes and penalties.

Drighlington took full advantage, creating another well worked try on 10 minutes as Michael Sanderson pounced on a chip kick that was spilled in goal to score the second try for the visitors and slot the conversion for a deserved 10-0 lead.

Crosfields needed to show some fight and on 21 minutes a half break from Matt Mahoney set the foundation for the ball to be shipped wide for Chris Burgess to cross to narrow the gap to 6 points at the break.

A solid start to the second half was needed for the home team to get back into the contest and captain Jack Reid came to the rescue once more, dummying his way over and converting his own try on 46 minutes to level the scores.

The score line would remain level until the 74th minute when Reid scored a carbon copy of his first try following a break from dummy half by returning hooker Hayden James.

This was to be the last score of the day as Crosfields hung on for dear life amid huge Drighlington pressure.

Crosfields: Ash Cornelia; Nathan Taylor, Chris Burgess, Chris Hull, Keiron Thomas; Jack Reid, Billy Sheen; Phil Brazendale, Hayden James, John Pickersgill, Matt Mahoney, Sam Woodhall, Joe Clarke. Subs: Matty Barder, Jordan Ansell, Ian Boden, Benedict Miller.