WINNINGTON Park narrowly failed to complete a late comeback as they lost at home to Kirkby Lonsdale on Saturday.

Park trailed 31-18 going into the last 10 minutes but would have won had their final try in the closing moments been converted, but they ended up falling 31-30.

The reshuffled Winnington side, who had actually led 18-3 at the break, got themselves back into a potentially winning position thanks to the late tries from Tom King and Alex De Keyzer, but with only the former’s effort converted it left the hosts having to settle for a bonus point achieved from scoring four touch downs.

In summary, it was a frustrating game with many opportunities that could not be converted due to handling errors and mistakes.

There were some positives, with 18-year-old debutant Ben Lilley having a great game off the bench with impressive carries and workrate while in part there were some great passages of play across the whole team.

Park went 10-0 ahead inside 12 minutes when Benny Elliot chipped through for Tom Merrick to gather the ball and score a converted try and then the creator added a penalty plus another that sandwiched a similar effort from Kirkby.

A lovely miss-out pass from King allowed Charlie Hyde to run 30 metres and dive over in the corner to complete the first half’s scoring.

Within eight minutes of the re-start, the visitors had cut the deficit to one point with two converted close-range tries, before a similar third in the 58th minute put KL in front for the first time at 24-18.

Park were five metres out from the Kirkby try line when an intercept led to that lead being extended to 31-18 to set up the comeback position for Winnington in the final 10 minutes.

Winnington: Chris Twigg, Tom Merrick, Charlie Hyde, Lewis Pickering, Alex De Keyzer, Benny Elliot, James Johnson, Tom King, Mike Gough, Daniel Gregory, Jake Cornwell, Matt Treacy, Liam Gough, Luke Westgate, Dan Williams, Jordan France, Sam Blears, Ben Lilley.