NEWSOME Panthers set up a mouth-watering home semi-final draw with Slaithwaite Saracens in the Andrew Bennett Memorial Trophy with a 46-8 victory at Drighlington A.
Although the final margin of the Panthers’ victory was big, they didn’t have everything their own way against determined hosts.
In fact, Drighlington opened the tryscoring to lead 4-2 after a Ross Studholme penalty had given Newsome the lead.
But by half-time, the visitors were well in command at 20-4.
Two cleverly-placed chips in the space of five minutes from man-of-the-match Studholme set the ball rolling as they led to tries from Ben Cuttell and Alex Chatterton, with Studholme and Ben Dawson adding the extras.
Good forward play from Wes Devlin then proved crucial as James Wallace crossed for the first of his five tries just before the break.
The second half was more of the same, with Wallace keeping up the momentum with his second.
Drighlington continued to fight and were rewarded with their second try to make it 26-8.
But three quick tries from Wallace and a first for the club for Steve Lockwood sealed a comfortable victory in which there were good performances from Devlin, Dawson (the top tackler with 18) and Damien Kenchington.
