He also reffed them when they lost at Macclesfield two weeks ago, but the truth is the ref had a decent game and we exerted more than enough pressure to deserve the win.

In fact, many refs would have shown red instead of yellow when flanker Craig West stamped on John Painter's chest in only the eighth minute - and scrum half Gary Smith was only spoken to for a late high tackle which left Davy Tighe sorely wounded for half the game.

They also complained bitterly about Tim Sawyer's 67 minute try when he snaked out an arm to touch down as he was tackled. I was closer than 13 of their players and the ref got it right.

The truth is West are playing their best rugby of the season and the pressure mounted by the forwards is now resulting in points and confidence is growing. With Huddersfield going down today we are just one point behind them and have to play them at their place - both of us to have play Sandal as well.

We began the game with the same team as last week although Allan Milne was still feeling his hamstring. That didn't stop him making a half break on 24 minutes and feeding Jamie Connolly with a lovely ball which saw Tank go in under the posts. This was after Cleckie looked dangerous for the first five minutes but we weathered that storm and camped on their line for fully ten minutes. Earlier in the season we would have retreated without scoring - now we don't.

And we kept up the pressure with the forwards driving the visitors back in set pieces and the line-out working better then last week. But all we had to show was a Stabs drop goal from 25 yards on 38 minutes.

They fudged the restart but somehow we managed to give away a penalty, which Carlo objected to, and they took the extra ten metres and full back Alex Green slotted the penalty to make it 10-3 at half time.

We took the game to the leaders at the start of the second but they broke away to score through Oliver Acroyd on 52 minutes - just after they had gone down to 14 men. Centre Jason Tozer was sent off for punching after Jamie Connolly had forced his way through their defence and offloaded to Darren Thomas, He was tackled and penalised for holding on and that's when the punch up started.

It was 10-10 and you felt the next try was vital. It came from Cleckheaton when hooker Steve Bishop finished off a drive on 55 minutes. It was converted by Green.

Would West fold? No. The new found confidence showed itself as we pinned them back in the bottom right hand corner through some excellent kicking by Stabs and solid focused effort from his players.

The result was that excellent sniping try by Tim Sawyer and Stabs converted from wide on the right to bring the game level.

Who wanted it more? We did. Bentley was giving his troops a right roasting but our forwards were dominant and, when Bentley did break out, Jamie Connolly caught him on at least three occasions to bring him down.

By now Darren Thomas was at scrum half as Tighe struggled with his shoulder and Milne had succumbed to his hamstring with Dave Mullen coming on for him.

We gor the reward our pressure deserved on 78n minutes. We had them pinned on their line, and had won three penalties before the ref warned Bentley that if his backs strayed offside one more time it would be a penalty try. They did. Stabs converted and the noisy West crowd were absolutely delighted.

So were the players at the final whistle. Two wins against top opposition has given them back their pride. Now they need to keep it going for three more games and then avoiding relegation will be a realistic goal - depending on what happens in the league above.