Gate win marred by 
a double injury blow

Chester’s home loss to Lymm narrowed the gap at the top of the table but Pete Wackett’s torn hamstring could keep him out of commission for a while and Max Lewis’s badly broken arm has almost certainly ended his season for Harrogate.

From the start, Harrogate outscrummaged the vaunted Kendal pack to produce a stream of good ball. This led to waves of their trademark attacking rugby.

Phil Wickham and Oli Denton (2) scored the tries with Callum Irvine adding 12 points with the boot.

Sandal extended their unbeaten run to eight games after a 20-11 home victory against Rossendale.

The visitors kicked two early penalties before Sandal got their noses in front following numerous phases which allowed full- back Tom Coad to streak away.

Fly-half Greg Wood converted and then added penalties either side of the break.

Wood intercepted in his own half and offloaded to centre Joe Allott who beat his man in one swift movement. That allowed the space in behind to be exploited and Allott sent winger Simon Frewin racing 40 metres to score to seal the win.

Bradford and Bingley are teetering perilously above the relegation zone after a game in which they dominated up front ended in a 24-7 win for Burnage.

The Bees still have to travel to the top three sides and the poor return of a single victory on the road does not bode well.

In recent weeks the Bees’ tactics of playing the ball in the forwards as much as possible and focussing on a direct approach up the middle of the field has worked well.

But Burnage were well prepared and handled that threat well. The narrow confines of their 4G pitch perhaps helped the home side.

The Bees saw enough of the ball to have scored more than the single try from Richard Tafa on 25 minutes which gave the visitors a brief lead. Otherwise, Burnage had all the answers and scored enough tries.