A lacklustre start cost Whitehaven in their first home Championship game of the season as they lost 20-16 to London Broncos.
They were 10-0 down and 29 minutes had elapsed before they put any serious pressure on the visitors who had settled really well.
They got it back to 10-10 and it 16-16 later but they could never get their noses in front.
Then some poor defence allowed the Broncos in for their fourth try which proved the crucial score and despite frantic late pressure Haven couldn’t pull it out of the fire.
It didn’t help Haven’s cause that they had Lasarusa Tabu sin-binned eight minutes from the end or that influential half-back Alex Bishop was ruled out in the pre-match warm-up.
The Broncos had gone in front on 10 minutes when Paul Ulberg went over in the corner for an unconverted try.
It was Ulberg who scored the second try after Haven had been caught short of numbers from a chip through and this time Oli Leyland’s conversion was on the button.
Finally Haven started to influence the game as an attacking force and five minutes before half-time, it was in fact a superb counter attack which got them on the scoreboard.
Curtis Teare got the ball away to Wigan loanee Jacob Douglas and although he still had a lot of work to do his dazzling pace took him 80 metres to touchdown by the posts for Josh Rourke to convert.
It was Douglas who put Haven level early in the second-half after an acrobatic finish after a superb sleight of hand pass from Teare.
Unfortunately the home side couldn’t build on that and it was London who took the lead again through Sam Davis who barged over from short range and Leyland added the extras.
Back came Whitehaven again and Dion Aiye was the architect for the third try as he sent the other Wigan loanee Junior Nsembe in for Rourke to add the conversion.
There was disaster for Haven, though, six minutes from the end when some poor goal-line defence allowed Jarred Bassett to score the unconverted try which was good enough to win the game.
It ended a run of three straight wins for Haven over the Broncos.
