Workington Zebras’ hopes of a second win of the season were dashed when a late comeback saw Hawcoat Park grab two late tries to snatch a 31-29 victory and stay top of Cumbria Conference 2.
Defeat was especially disappointing for the Zebras as they had earlier fought back from 7-19 down to lead 29-19 with 20 minutes remaining.
The match itself was barely a minute old when the Barrow visitors took the lead from their first attack, which ended with a try under the posts and an easy conversion.
But Workington hit back and within three minutes were on level terms when Dean Jones broke clear and offloaded the ball to Elliot Jones, who went over to set up a routine conversion for John McCrickerd.
But then Hawcoat roared back into life and five minutes later, their exerted pressure in Zebras territory was rewarded with an unconverted try in the corner.
Following this frenetic start, the match began to settle down as both sides cancelled each other out with neither side managing to create anything substantive for a while.
Then Workington began to make dangerous surges into their opponent’s half – especially from the two Jones, McCrickerd, the unflinching Scott Campbell and the tireless Tom Lawson – and very nearly scored ten minutes from time only for Eliott Jones to be tackled within arm’s length of the whitewash.
Hawcoat Park rode the storm and then hit the Zebras with a sucker punch just before half time when after some excellent scrummaging the following pass-and-move cut Workington to ribbons and the visitors registered their third try which was converted.
Once again this season, Workington conceded a try either just before or on the stroke of half time – but then deep into stoppage time they had the last word when Dean Jones caught Hawcoat off guard to race home for a well taken try that McCrickerd converted.
The opening 10 minutes of the second half were dominated by the Zebras as first a McCrickerd penalty and then a penalty try awarded for one infringement too many and they had the lead for the first time in the match.
Hawcoat Park continued to press and probe, but Workington nullified them at every turn and on the hour increased their lead when another well delivered attacking surge ended with Elliot Jones ploughing his way through to score his second and the Zebras’ bonus point try.
Despite the try not been converted, Workington were now 29-19 up and in the driving seat and only a desperate tackle on McCrickerd three minutes later just short of the whitewash prevented a possible match winning try.
But then Workington seemed to lose focus and this was seized on and punished by Hawcoat Park with two tries in six minutes, both of which were down to slack Zebras marking. The second of these tries were converted to regain the lead for the visitors.
Suddenly, the Zebras snapped out of and began to launch attacking surges and efficient scrummaging deep into their opponent’s half and on 79 minutes they were awarded a penalty – McCrickerd struck the ball sweetly and clinically but could only watch in anguish as the ball fell painfully short of going over.
Hawcoat Park retained possession and closed out the match to take maximum points and a bonus point of their own.
In contrast, Workington had to be content with two points for scoring four tries and for losing within seven points – but it could and should have been so much more.
As it is though, the Zebras remain bottom of the Conference and will hope to regain confidence this Saturday when they go on the road to take on Creighton.
