Wilmslow 25, Birkenhead Park 31

BIRKENHEAD Park sneaked victory in the fifth minute of injury time between two evenly-matched sides at Wilmslow's Memorial Ground.

Park started in determined mood and after good interplay between the forwards and backs Stu Brown ran in an excellent try from 15 yards out after three minutes, converted by Simon Mason.

In the following 10 minutes Wilmslow kicked two penalties to Park’s one, leaving the score 10-6 to the visitors.

Wilmslow scored the next try to take the lead when Airey capitalised on some sloppy Park defensive work to score in the 22nd minute, conversion missed.

Simon Mason restored Park's lead with a 30th-minute penalty.

Wilmslow were now enjoying a good spell retaining possession and putting the pressure onto Park.

They scored their second try on the stroke of half time when Hughes scored in the corner to put the home side 16-13 up.

Birkenhead started the second half taking the game to Wilmslow, Mason kicked his third penalty to bring the scores level before Park stretched the home side's defence which allowed winger Adam Wellington to finish off a fine move and score.

This topsy-turvy match swung again as Wilmslow dominated the next 15 minutes, McCullam kicked two more penalties to give the home side the lead 22-21.

Matt Walls, making his first appearance of the season for Park, produced a match-winning tackle in the corner to deny Wilmslow a try in the 75th minute.

This tackle spurred on his teammates as they rallied and made good progress into Wilmslow's half, which produced another penalty which Mason kicked to restore Park's 24-22 lead in the 78th minute.

The match restarted with the kick-off going deep into the 22.

Park once more failed to clear their lines and again incurred the wrath of the referee, who awarded Wilmslow a penalty which McCullam kicked to retake the lead in the 81st minute, 25-24.

Now deep into injury time Birkenhead managed to regather the ball and launched a last-gasp attack which led to man-of-the-match Walls scoring the winning try, converted by Mason.