Nevertheless a bonus point win was just what we needed and with Cleckheaton suffering their first defeat of the season at the hands of Huddersfield YMCA things have tightened up further at the top of North One East. It goes to show that teams are all capable of taking points of each other, particularly at home, and it seems unlikely there will be a runaway winner in this division.

On an unseasonably mild afternoon Alnwick got off the better start and with their reputation of a useful back division looking to be well-founded, held possession for the opening few minutes. James Bird put them in the lead with a well struck penalty after 5 minutes but dropped short with another from longer range two minutes later.

With the ball in hand Alnwick looked a useful side but defensively they were exposed all too often and after Ian Pinchen broke away to touch down for our first score after 15 minutes, the procession of tries continued for the rest of the half.

Ryan Painter was next to shrug off a tackle from the base of a scrum and gallop in from 25 metres then Scott Butcher stretched his legs up the right wing to score in the corner despite the close attention of his opposite number.

Bird should have pulled three points back but saw his penalty attempt rebound off the post and moments later Luke Mallinson slipped through a gap on half-way and raced clear for a try under the posts. The full-back, looking increasingly assured in the first XV, was across the whitewash again three minutes before half-time with probably our best try of the afternoon. He started the attack by running back a clearance kick and the ball was kept alive through several pairs of hands before Liam Bailey surged for the line. He was held up short but offloaded back to Mallinson to score the try.

Alnwick’s first notable attack since the opening exchanges ended with a James Warcup drop goal but at 29-6 at the break it already looked too far back for the visitors.

Bailey continued the scoring rate five minutes into the second half when sustained pressure led to a huge overlap on the left and the centre went in untouched, but from that point on the game became increasingly more even. Alnwick began to retain possession much better than they had in the first half and as they had already shown, with the ball they looked dangerous. We did add our final try through Adam Coates, from a rolling maul with a little over ten minutes to play, but the closing stages saw the visitors peg back our lead.

A long attack finally wore down our tenacious defence with prop Ben Boothman finishing off and a minute later Rory Mallaburn broke free up the right touch-line for another try. Two conversions from Bird gave the scoreline some respectability but despite Alnwick deserving some return for running the ball well, the coaches will be disappointed to concede late scores, particularly the second, in what had been an otherwise faultless performance.

West:  Luke Mallinson, Scott Butcher,  Andrew Cheslin, Liam Bailey, Peter Youll,  Stu Waites, Ryan Painter, Ian Pinchen,  Andrew Rollins, Adam Coates,  Michael Hogan,  Owen Bennett,  Dan Boatman [c],  Jon Boatman, Sam Miller.

Reps: Andrew Dixon, Chris Atkins, Kyle Jamieson.

Tries: Pinchen, Painter, Butcher, Mallinson 2, Bailey, Coates

Cons: Waites 2

YC: J Boatman

Alnwick:  James Bird,  Peter Moralee, Rory Mallaburn, Frank Hutchinson ,Andrew Shell [c],  James Warcup,  Ian Gray,   Andrew Johnson,  Harry Sordy,  Ben Boothman,  Josh Burgess,  Oli Sutheran,  Gordon Smith,  Robert Thompson,  James Hamilton.

Reps: Joe Weddle, Oli Hamilton, Peter Brown.

Tries: Boothman, Mallaburn

Cons: Bird 2

Pen: Bird

DG: Warcup

YC: Johnson

Referee: Carl Hall