Wharfedale 22, Sedgley Park 22

A frantic explosive final five minutes saw Wharfedale retrieve what looked like a totally lost cause in this vital rearranged home National League One encounter under lights at The Avenue on Tuesday.

For 77 minutes, Sedgley Park had exerted an ever-increasingly dominant grip on proceedings and were leading 22-8, having looked the sharper, more inventive and incisive side.

Both victory and the invaluable four points needed to keep the spectre of relegation away looked assured. Then Wharfedale ignited, playing with a astonishing eruption of power, cohesion and pace which made a mockery of their earlier nervous error-strewn play.

With three minutes left, Simon Horsfall squeezed over in the corner after a furious combination of sweeping back-play out of defence and determined ball-carrying through the middle, with replacement Ben Sowrey the catalyst.

Tom Davidson’s studied touch-line kick – banishing Saturday’s gremlins – sailed high and straight, and one bonus point had been salvaged. The night had produced something after all.

The fired-up Greens immediately fought their way back to the Park line. Increasingly desperate Tigers’ defence yielded a penalty line-out at the corner, and then, in attempting to stem successive close drives, a penalty try for multiple infringements near the line.

With only a minute remaining, Davidson’s simple conversion saw the Greens secure a thrilling and unlikely draw.

Park will, with some justification, no doubt feel themselves robbed. While Wharfedale fumbled everything in sight as soon as they got anywhere near the line, the visitors varied their play cleverly, injected pace going forward and looked assured in control of the ball.

Their first-half reward may only have been four penalties from the sure boot of Steve Nutt to Davidson’s single effort for the Greens but a gap was beg-inning to open up.

A moment of more potent play earned the Greens a fine try immediately after the resumption when Chris Steel finished off some powerful driving play in the corner. But Park regained control in the 50th minute when their most influential ball-carrier, No 8 Juan Crous, crossed from a line-out peel for Nutt to convert. They may well be wondering what hit them in the last few fatal minutes.

WHARFEDALE: D Hart; A Monks, T Davidson, A Hodgson, S Horsfall; T Barrett, A Black (S Cottrell 69); T McGee, S Graham (B Sowrey 69), C Steel (N Dickinson 73); A Brown (T Vaioleti 50), A Allen; D Hughes, D Solomi, R Baldwin (captain).

SEDGLEY PARK: S Nutt; M Dutton, R Wainright, M Riley, At; P Jones, C Wilkinson; D Birchall, G Roberts, N Flynn; A Atkinson, A Lewis; R Oxley, G Drew, J Crous.

REFEREE: Andy Taylorson (RFU)