Workington Town gave their fans a winning finish to their home programme in League One.
Jonty Gorley’s men beat Rochdale Hornets 36-4 at the Fibrus Community Stadium and will finish the season as runners-up.
North Wales Crusaders clinched the title by beating Keighley in their final home game.
Former Whitehaven coach Carl Forster will take his Crusadetrs team to the Recreation Ground as champions – and it has also been announced the club has applied for Super League.
Meanwhile Town can look back on a satisfactory season which, ahead of the final trip to Goole next week, has produced only four defeats in 17 games.
Against Rochdale it looked as though they were going to run up their biggest score of the season as they had raced into a 32-0 by half-time.
Rather surprisingly, in a stop-start second-half, they only scored one unconverted try through Dom Wear in the last minute.
Rochdale only managed a similar score to share the second-half 4-4.
Town had taken the lead on seven minutes with a try by Steve Scholey and Jake Carter landed the first of his four conversions.
He was followed over by Lennon Clark five minutes later and when Callum Phillips darted in on 15 minutes Town were 16-0 to the good.
Mason Lewthwaite (21), Rio Corkill (26) and Zarrin Galea (36) kept the points coming as Rochdale offered very little in response.
It was a different story on the resumption as Rochdale certainly looked more determined in defence and they got on the scoresheet themselves after 59 minutes with an unconverted try by winger Dan Nixon, who has recently signed a new deal with Rochdale for 2026.
Town will complete their 2025 campaign at Goole Vikings next Saturday.
