TWO bonus points in their relegation clash with Sandal edged them closer to safety, but Tynedale were left ruing some sloppy finishing.

Again playing at their temporary home of Newcastle Falcons’ Kingston Park, a slow start to the game and some wayward passing meant that they settled for the 20-20 draw despite outscoring their West Yorkshire rivals four tries to one.

It was Sandal who got the scoring under way after seven minutes as they started brighter, tighthead prop Norbury touching down in the corner.

The visitors, who are sitting just outside of the relegation zone, continued their strong start to the game with impressive fly half Gregory Wood extending their lead to 11 points after 28 minutes.

After some pinpoint kicking from fullback Ashley Smith, Tynedale were finally able to venture into the Sandal 22 for the first time of the game and they were over immediately as a string of passes allowed left wing Oli Walker to touch down in the left hand corner.

However, the cheers from the crowd turned to groans as the score was ruled out for a forward pass.

Tynedal recovered the ball from the scrum, though, and some simple rugby passing through hands saw Dan Marshall score in the corner.

Robert Parker hooked the conversion just right of the sticks, leaving the home side trailing by six points at half-time.

With Sale pulling off a surprise victory away to Stourbridge and South Leicester beating Harrogate, Tyne knew the pressure was on and re-emerged from the break a different team.

Urgency was injected into their play by scrum-half Matthew Outson and, after pushing their opponents back to their own try line for several minutes, the pressure finally told.

The referee began to get frustrated with constant infringements from the visitors, and inside centre Mark Pease was given his marching orders for not rolling away.

From the resulting scrum, Tynedale went down the blindside and Marshall splashed down for his second try of the evening after 45 minutes.

Shortly afterwards, the home side grabbed the lead for the first time of the night with their third try.

Working from the set piece again, a quick offload from Smith to Walker saw him join his fellow winger on the scoresheet.

Wood countered to put Sandal bring Sandal back to within a point and the home side’s nerves got the better of them as an awful pass to Marshall butchered an almost certain try in the corner.

Yet they got their bonus point for a fourth try of the game when their domination in the scrum paid off, the ball stolen to send prop Ben Haigh crashing over from five metres following some patient build-up play.

The try gave the blue and whites confidence at 20-14 up, however Wood was again to prove a thorn in their side.

Two penalties within a few minutes levelled the scores with 10 minutes left on the clock, and he nearly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with a late drop kick attempt which fell just short and wide.

The Tynedale faithful were growing increasingly nervy as the game entered its final five minutes, but were given late hope when the bullocking Haigh went on a purposeful run.

Breaking clear of the Sandal defence, he ran 50 metres towards the try line but was denied by a last gasp tackle by the Sandal full back. To add to the misery, the ball was knocked on in the process.

Tynedale head of rugby Scott Lawson said: “We just left too many points out there.

“To score four tries and get 20 points shows that we’ve not kicked any conversions.

“We also missed a couple of kicks at penalties, and we were held up over the line three times.

“Sandal showed their desperation. They were a team fighting for the lives and I think on the day they probably showed a little more desire than us. 

“I think we’ve had good results in the previous weeks, but we couldn’t match that today.”

Tynedale are now all but safe from a second successive relegation as they are eight points ahead of third placed Sale, who have three games remaining.

The Corbridge team have two games to secure their status in National League Two (North), starting with tomorrow’s trip to seventh placed Harrogate. Their season ends with a home game with third placed Leicester Lions on April 30.

Tynedale Raiders made the trip to Harrogate last weekend in the Northern Second Team League and were well beaten 27-5.