Championship Round-up: Barrow do it again, wins for Toronto, London and Batley
Barrow pulled off another upset as they defeated Leigh 24-20.
A week on from their tremendous 8-8 draw against Toronto Wolfpack, the newly-promoted Raiders did it again against full-time opposition.
London Broncos are the stand alone leaders of the Championship as they made it three wins from three, beating Featherstone Rovers 44-24.
Toronto, meanwhile, bounced back from the disappointment of last week with a hard fought 20-6 win at Halifax.
In our featured live commentary game, Batley ran in nine tries as they defeated Swinton 48-28 at the AJ Bell Stadium.
After the Lions had opened the scoring through Gabriel Fell, the Bulldogs gradually took control of the match to open up a 20-4 lead with tries from Lewis Galbraith (2), Wayne Reittie and Adam Gledhill.
But in the seven minutes leading up to half time, Swinton worked their way back in to the match.
Jack Hansen sold an outrageous dummy to scamp over from 30 metres, before Chris Hankinson found a gap on the far side to cross over, his two conversions reducing the deficit to 20-16 at half time.
The two sides felt each other out at the start of the second half before again it was the Bulldogs that gradually took the ascendancy in the match.
They were camped in the Swinton half but just couldn’t find a way over – that was until Josh Barlow was sinbinned for a high shot on Michael Ward, and the floodgates opened.
First, Ward crashed over under the sticks before he then got on the end of a lovely break and offload by Galbraith, which Ward finished off via Dave Scott.
Brad Day then got over the line and Batley had scored 16 points while Barlow was in the sinbin.
His return didn’t stop the Batley onslaught, Scott crossing for his try, before Swinton rallied, as they had done in the first half.
A lovely delayed pass by Chris Woods sent Matt Sarsfield over and another try reduced arrears to 42-28.
With 13 minutes on the clock, a 14 point deficit was always going to be a tall order and so it proved.
Alistair Leak shut the game down, worming his way over from dummy half under the posts to seal an excellent Batley win.
Swinton: Fell, Butt, Hankinson, Lloyd, Forsyth, Woods, Hansen, Bracek, Waterworth, Shelford, Davies, Sarsfield, Bennion. Subs: Barlow, Hansen, Kibula, Taylor.
Batley: Scott, Reittie, Crookes, Galbraith, Ainscough, Walker, Brambani, Gledhill, Leak, Rowe, Manning, Day, Brown. Subs: Chandler, Davey, Holland, Ward.
Results
Barrow 24-20 Leigh
Halifax 6-20 Toronto
London 44-24 Featherstone
Swinton 28-48 Batley
Join us tomorrow for live commentary of Rochdale Hornets against Dewsbury Rams
