Coach John Stabler was at a loss to explain the transformation. He said: "It beats me. We were awful at their place but clearly should have won today. But we will settle for the point and now we must build on it."

Both teams stood in a minute's silence as did the Under 18's who were hosting Blaydon - going on to win 62-7.

The visitors had the best of the opening exchanges, with their backs once again looking lively, but this time our first up tackling was superb.

They did go ahead in 12 minutes when No 8 Ibbotson galloped over after some pressure on the right. But instead of the floodgates opening - and despite us losing a succession of balls against the head - we fought back.

On the quarter hour Stabs kicked a penalty into the corner and, after man of the match Chocky Davies won the the ball, the forwards put the visitors under pressure. Brett Cullinane emerged from the ruck to race in from 10 yards. Davy Tighe converted and he then got a penalty after 32 as we dominated territory.

Once again we struggled to convert that pressure into points. Birkenhead broke away on 37 minutes with a kick through which full back Peter Hodgson collected. But he was tackled high by second row Ben O'Rourke and Brett Cullinane was punched in the face as he remonstrated with the No 5. The ref had no hesitation in showing the red card.

We were 10-8 up at the break after O'Connor pulled back a penalty and against 14 men we should have fancied our chances.

But after last week at Sandal anything could happen.

In fact, 14 man Park got into the lead after 55 minutes thanks to a pen and a dubious looking try by prop Phil Reynolds. He looked to be have at least three of his forwards in front of him as he made abreak from a maul, and the West crowd was baying at the ref. Frankly, if he had said he couldn't have seen it in the gathering gloom it would have been fair enough.

It put Park 16-13 ahead but we were not to be denied. Our pressure paid off in the dying minutes when davy Tighe struck home a 35 yard penalty to celebrate his 28th Birthday. The point was nice - the performance was the main thing.