Heworth ARLC threw away a half-time lead to crash out of the Powergen Challenge Cup at the first hurdle at home to Stanley Rangers.

The Villagers led 12-4 shortly before the interval and looked on course for a place in the first round, but the team from the Yorkshire League came back to triumph 24-18 in this preliminary round clash.

Stanley thus pushed their claims for a place in the National Conference, having been denied elevation to BARLA's flagship league in three successive years, the latter two, ironically, seeing Heworth re-elected instead.

Liam Cochrane and player-coach Chris Smith scored Heworth's tries in the first half and Sean Coulson's two goals proved the difference at half-time as Rangers crossed through Richard Cattley, the impressive centre, and reduced the deficit before the break through Jack Hogan.

But Cattley crossed again after the restart to level the scores and, when Heworth had teenage substitute forward Ben Eastwood sin-binned for holding down, the visitors held the upper hand.

Mark Riley powered over to give them the lead, which was increased by stand-off Danny Grice's conversion, and they went further ahead as Mark Robinson went in for Grice to add more extras.

Heworth, with hooker Jon Jewitt and loose-forward Luke Judson impressing, were not dead and buried, though, and set up a nail-biting finale as Wayne Foster scored a try and Coulson goaled, but they could not find another score to take the tie into extra time.

Heworth spokesman Ken Sykes said: "We looked a bit lethargic at times and they appeared to have a bit more will to win. There wasn't a lot in it but they probably deserved to go through."

Updated: 11:02 Monday, January 09, 2006