THATTO Heath Crusaders A maintained their unbeaten start to their North West Men's League Premier Division campaign with a hard fought 31-30 victory over a spirited Ashton Bears side.

Heath started the game in sluggish fashion, and found themselves 14 points down with as many minutes played. It was only when Ryan Heaton sent Jonny Hughes crashing over on the half hour, did the Crusaders finally wake-up.

With Billy Knowles in the sin bin, Heath managed to notch tries, firstly through Aaron Dancer who plucked Matty Cook's cross kick out of the air, and then Connor Dutton, who following a blockbusting Thomas Tunstall run, managed to burrow his way over from dummy half.

With Shaun Quinn successful in converting two of the three Crusaders tries, Heath had a 16-14 lead at the break.

A fine pass from Andrew Stott and neat footwork from Ryan Heaton, saw the full back break the second half scoring deadlock on 60 minutes to give Heath a 20-14 lead.

Connor Dutton's offload then found Jonny Rae, who showed great pace to round the full back, Shaun Quinn added the extras to give Heath a 26-14 lead with 15 minutes to go.

Ashton roared back with two quick scores out wide, before Jonny Rae powered over from close range, the conversion was missed, and Heath had a 30-24 lead with eight minutes to play.

Ashton set up a tense finale with a converted try, to tie the scores up at 30-30.

A fine two man tackle from Liam Knowles and Owen Scholes, sent the Ashton number 5 flying over the sideline, with three minutes to play.

With Heath back in possession, the forward pack managed to set up the position for Shaun Quinn to slot over the winning drop goal from 30 metres out.

Man of the match for Heath went to Thomas Tunstall, who was closely followed by Liam Knowles and Andrew Stott.

Thatto Heath Crusaders A are next in action away at Golborne on Saturday 13 May in the NWML Cup, kick off 2.30pm.