Whitehaven slipped to their second successive home defeat when they went down 25-12 at home to Batley Bulldogs.
It was Batley’s first win of the season to lift them off the foot of the table and was a deserved victory in west Cumbria.
The visitors were off the mark after starting strongly on the front foot and went ahead after ten minutes when Ben White sent Dale Morton over in the corner. Robbie Butterworth’s conversion attempt hit the post.
Batley continued to force the pace and they doubled their lead when Elliot Kear went in for the second unconverted try after good work by Butterworth.
Whitehaven were not able to find good field positions and Batley came back to score a third try after great work down the middle. It was west Cumbrian Alistair Leek who finished it off and this time Butterworth converted.
After giving their opponents a fourteen points start Whitehaven came back and scored a good try from Jake Maizen after Lachlan Hanneghan had put in a clever kick from a scrum. Jake Carter converted.
It was still 14-6 at half-time and Haven badly needed to score first on the resumption but it was Batley who scored a fourth try. This time a long pass from Butterworth was taken by Morton who went in for his second try.
Batley were taking no chances and when they had got into a good position from a 40-20 Josh Woods dropped a goal – just in case it got close at the end.
But in fact Batley made sure of the points five minutes from time when they moved the ball well and Kieran Buchanan scored the fifth and final try, converted by Ben White.
The fact that Whitehaven scored the final try of the game through new loanee Brett Bailey was purely a statistical note with Carter converting.
