Austen Thompson ensures share of the spoils for Sandal in thriller with top 3 Blackburn

In fact Sandal might have snatched victory had another try been converted, but the result was a far cry from the heavy defeat of 76-14 suffered away against the same club earlier in the season, writes Howard Newton.

It was encouraging to see the side fulfil its promise, which has been growing over the past few weeks. That said the side was strengthened by experience with the inclusion of Joe Bedford, Greg Wood and Joe Allott, all of who gave their support to a side which battled throughout against a much bigger pack.

Playing against the slope, the home side was soon put under pressure, but defended well to save several early scoring chances for the opposing side.

Relief came in the tenth minute when Greg Wood opened his side’s account with a penalty conversion after James Ellar had kicked up field to give Sandal a position on the Blackburn 22-metre line.

While the home side battled to score again the Blackburn defence held firm to the point of progressing down field from where a cross kick gave their centre the opportunity to cross in the corner. With a successful touchline conversion, off the upright, the visitors had taken a 7-3 lead after 20 minutes.

From the restart Blackburn took possession and set up an attacking move to score a second converted try just a minute later.

Undeterred, Sandal hit back and after several attempts to break down a strong defence the ball was spun wide, giving Wood an opportunity to hand on to Ellar, who easily crossed in the corner.

However, in the 32nd minute Blackburn nudged further ahead with a third try to take the score to 19-8.

In the rest of the first half the sides exchanged field positions with the help of penalties.

From one of their penalties Wood sent the ball between the posts to reduce Sandal’s arrears to eight points at the break.

The second half saw Sandal setting up attacking moves in the early minutes and then disaster struck when an attempted long pass was intercepted by the Blackburn full-back who outstripped the home defence to touch down after a near 80-metre chase to the line, taking the score to 26-11 with the added extras.

It was not looking good for the home side at this stage, but the players rallied and soon added to their score through another Wood penalty.

Then followed a 15 minute period when both sides attacked and defended in equal measure.

With the game going into its final quarter Blackburn were attacking but were penalised for a head high tackle. From the ensuing kick to touch and line-out Dom Fawcett made a telling 50-metre break to set up a position well inside the visitors half from where Joe Allott glided through to score under the posts.

Jake Adams converted to give Sandal a chance of league points with the score now back to within five.

From the resumption they capitalised by setting up several phases of excellent running rugby, including another 50-metre dash by Fawcett.

He was tackled just short of the line, but from here a move started with Bedford’s long pass and was carried on by Ben Reynolds and Ryan Gibson before Austen Thompson strolled over in the bottom corner.

The conversion was missed but Sandal were level at 26-26.

With 12 minutes left it gave both sides everything to play for, during which time Blackburn mounted several attacking moves, but any scoring chances were efficiently snuffed out by an excellent home side defence to leave the final score at 26-26.

Blackburn had a chance to snatch victory two minutes from time, but to the home fans’ relief their penalty kick attempt missed.

A share of the spoils was deserved by Sandal after another brave and promising performance.

They are now 11 points clear of the relegation zone and eight points ahead of third from bottom Burnage with five games remaining and will be looking for another good display when away to sixth-placed Lymm this Saturday.