Chester 24 (Tries: Donovan, Moore, Bellis. Cons: Bebbington 3. Pen: Bebbington.). 

Altrincham Kersal 15 (Tries: Petite, Claassen. Con: Wainwright. Pen: Wainwright.). 

Chester ended Altrincham Kersal’s chances of catching second placed West Park St Helens with this win at Hare Lane.  

Chester right wing Sam Donovan got the home side on the scoreboard with a 9^th minute try which Matt Bebbington converted.

AK got off the mark in the 18^th minute when wing Joel Petite went over for an unconverted try.

With half time approaching the home side got a second try through flanker Andy Moore, Bebbington converted and the home side went in 14-5 ahead.

Nine minutes into the second half and they went further ahead with No 8 Steve Bellis touching down and again Bebbington converted.

Richard Wainwright pulled three points back with a penalty goal on 51 minutes and when he converted a try from full back Zander Claassens on 63 minutes they trailed by just six points 21-15.

Chester sealed the win when Bebbington put over a 74^th minute penalty goal to open up a nine point lead.

West Park St Helens 41 (Tries: Pearce 2, Callaghan, Turner, Westhead, Newman, Williams. Cons: Soutar 3.). 

Birkenhead Park 14 (Tries: Davis, Ibbotson. Cons: Davis 2.). 

West Park St Helens kept up their drive for second place with this home win over Birkenhead Park at Redrocks.  

In the first half the home side built up a 22-0 lead scoring four tries with scrum half Ian Pearce bagging a brace of tries.

They went further ahead early in the second half with centre Ian Callaghan going over for a fifth try and Andrew Soutar putting over his second conversion to make it 29-0.

The visitors did pull a couple of tries back to make it 34-14 but the home side had the final say with No 8 Mark Williams going over for the seventh home try in the final few minutes.

Huddersfield 17 (Tries: Paxman, Summers, Gough. Con: Grayshon.). 

Middlesbrough 6 (Pens: Baggett 2.). 

The visitors put the away side ahead with a 5^th minute penalty goal from Neil Baggett but the lead only last a couple of minutes before centre Lee Paxman going over for a try and a 5-3 lead.

Three minutes later they were 10-3 ahead with the other centre Neil Summers going over for an unconverted try. Before half time Baggett slotted over a second penalty goal to keep the visitors in touch.

They sealed the win when prop James Stringwell went over for the third home try and this time Jamie Grayshon added the conversion.  

Longton 10 (Tries: Moss, Lawlor.). 

Hull 0 (). 

Much needed win for Longton as they look to try and climb out of the bottom three.

The home side took the lead in the 9^th minute when prop Jez Moss went over for a try and a 5-0 lead in what was the only score of the opening 40 minutes. .

The second try did not come till the 66^th minute when replacement back row man Mike Lawlor went over to make it 10-0.  

The win closed the gap on Caldy to two points with three matches still to play whilst Caldy have just the one match left.

Whitchurch 5 (Try: Gardiner.). 

Altrincham Kersal 14 (Try: Claassen. Pens: Wainwright 3.). 

AK picked up the win they need to keep them in with an outside chance of catching West Park for second spot but were less than convincing.

They were ahead in the 10^th minute when Richard Wainwright slotted over a penalty goal and two minutes later they were 8-0 ahead with full back Zander Claassens going over for a try in what was the final score of the first half.

In the second half Whitchurch were first to score with left wing Michael Gardiner going over for a 62^nd minute try.

Wainwright sealed the win for the visitors with two late penalty goals in the 75^th and 80^th minutes. .

Caldy 22 (Tries: Close, Holt, Banson. Cons: Coast 2. Pen: Coast.). 

Westoe 27 (Tries: McFarland, G Haswell, Judson, Tenet. Cons: D Haswell 2. Pen: D Haswell.). 

With 80 minutes rugby completed on Saturday last, Caldy may well have settled for the one league point as they were drawing 22 – 22 with 5^th place Westoe.  Having come back from being 5 – 22 down at half time they had put together a superb second half performance and 1 league point could have been sufficient to have guaranteed their North 1 future.  Westoe had other ideas and with a scrum on 5 metres that appeared to wheel past 90 degrees they scored the decisive try to snatch the win and take the points back home to the North East.  It was a sickener for Caldy and whilst full credit must be given to the visitors for sticking at it to the death the home side had surely done enough to have deserved a draw if not more.  Had Caldy produced this sort of performance earlier in the season there is no doubt that they would have been considerably higher up in the league.  They didn’t and they are not and when teams are forced to scrap for their lives they do not always get what they deserve and they now face the nervous examination of other fixtures.  Unquestionable survival is still potentially in their own hands by beating Middlesbrough in the final game away from home however, rearranged games mean that not all of the games will be completed when Caldy face Middlesbrough on 29^th April.  The picture will be a little clearer next week when Middlesbrough play the first of their last two games at home against West Park.  Middlesbrough are currently on 12 points and a loss against West Park will see them almost certainly relegated.  Longton did their cause a power of good by beating Hull and next week are almost certain to pick up 2 more point as they face bottom side Whitchurch.  If they secure this win they will go ahead of Caldy and push them into the 10^th place.  In normal years there are three sides are relegated from each of the level 5 leagues that include North 1, Midlands 1, London & South East 1 and South West 1 making 12 in all.  However, this year because of league expansion there will be 10 sides relegated, the two sides that remain at this level to be determined by playing record.  As things stand Penryn in South West 1 and Burton in Midlands 1 have 12 points with 1 game remaining, Old Albanians in London & South East 1 have 13 points with two games remaining and therefore Caldy on 15 points could be safe and Longton with 13 points but with three games in hand also look safe if Middlesbrough fail to secure the win next week against play off chasing West Park.  For the St Helens side Wednesday evenings game between Chester and Altrincham Kersal has a big influence on the play off issue.  If Altrincham fail to win then they will be at worst runners up but will still have top of the table ambitions if Morley slip up and fail to win at least 1 of their remaining 3 games.

Westoe kicked off with a strong wind at their backs but Caldy started brightly and patiently built phases and played the initial exchanges in the opposition half of the field.  However, handling was difficult in the blustery conditions and as the possession was ceded the ball was kicked back deep into the Caldy territory.  Westoe opened the scoring on 14 minutes with a David Haswell penalty kick for 0 – 3.  Caldy responded securing their ball at a line out in the visitors 22 and from the rolling maul Matt Holt bust over to score for 5 – 3.  Westoe responded within minutes in precisely the same manner – line-out, maul, try the beneficiary this time was hooker Pete Tennett and Dave Haswell added the conversion for 5 – 10.  Brother Graeme Haswell came to the party on 34 minutes finishing in the left corner and with a minutes to half time fullback McFarland score in the same position to leave the half time score 5 – 22 but not before Matt Holt had been yellow carded and Paul Campbell had gone own injured. 

Campbell’s place at the restart was taken by Daniel Leavasa.  It was imperative that Caldy scored first and after Graeme Haswell was yellow carded Caldy kicked the penalty to the corner and the popular scoring trick worked again with Gareth Bansor crossing and Marcus Coast making the good conversion kick for 12 – 22.  On 64 minutes John Close performed a superb charge down and followed up to score the try and again Coast converted for 19 – 22.  With the confidence up Caldy looked as though they could snatch this game and on 37 minutes Marcus Coast levelled the score with a well struck penalty.  This took policeman Marcus Coast’s personal 1st XV points scoring tally to 999.  He is sure to be only the second player in the last 26 years to score more than 1000 points and will have done so in less than 4 seasons.  However, the action was not over and Caldy did not deal with the restart kick well and suddenly Westoe had a scrum on 5 metres and scored.  There was no time for Caldy to reply and the result had slipped through their fingers.