Cleckheaton finally win on the road to lift hopes of beating drop

Cleckheaton came away with a hard-earned four points thanks to tries by Lance Hamilton, Tom Lauriston and Joe Masseralla to stay in touch with fellow strugglers Rochdale.

Paul Moss kicked the hosts ahead before Hamilton broke three tackles to go in at the corner, Ross Hayden's kick going just wide.

Moss put West back in front with and Hayden missed two chances before Tom Dixon was gifted an unconverted try.

Cleckheaton got their break as Matt Piper sent in Lauriston and Pete Murphy converted.

Lauriston was held up on the line before the break but the start of the second half saw Cleckheaton's line put under pressure but after three five- metre scrums they managed to clear and push West back to halfway.

In the 55th minute, loan player Iain Gordon came on for the injured Mitch Ashworth and kicked a penalty to give Cleckheaton a four-point cushion.

In the 70th, Cleckheaton made some hard work pay off when Carl Mason broke free of the pack to get the ball to Masseralla, who slipped three tacklers to run in what was Cleckheaton's try of the season, Gordon converting.

West replied with a try from Jamie Connolly and even though Gordon missed a long-range penalty and Cleckheaton were under pressure in the final 10 minutes, they held out to record their first away win since Darlington last season.

Rochdale 5

Middlesbrough 21

MIDDLESBROUGH ground out a victory but will rue not securing a bonus point after dominating the match for long periods.

The visitors started well enough, with flanker Carl Kirwan touching down after 19 minutes.

Although the conversion was missed, they went further ahead on 31 minutes with wing-forward Rory Duff racing in, and this time left winger Callum Campbell was successful with the conversion as Middlesbrough established a 12-0 lead.

Rochdale finally got their account off the mark two minutes before the break with winger Peter Cowburn touching down, but it was to prove their only score of the match.

Middlesbrough maintained some good pressure in the second half and a strong defensive performance meant they never looked like conceding, but they could not find a way through the Rochdale line, and instead had to settle for three penalties, which all came from Campbell's boot on 51, 60 and 72 minutes.