Chorley Magpies 11 Hunslet Hawks 14 CHORLEY signed off for the season with a narrow defeat at home to Hunslet who just missed out on promotion from division two.

Magpies coach Kevin Tamati will look back on a season that started badly but improved significantly, providing a platform to build on and much encouragement for the future.

Chorley could easily have collapsed against their high-flying opponents who notched a try after less than a minute's play through Aussie stand off Murphy.

But Molyneaux sent Parsley in down the left for a fine Magpies try before Lambert hit back for the visitors, with Wilson converting.

Chorley drew level though when Finney went over for a try converted by Mike Stewart. And a Carl Parker drop goal gave Chorley the narrowest of interval leads at 11-10.

Chorley had a try disallowed less than 10 minutes after the restart. But Irwin slipped a number of defenders to cross for an excellent try five minutes later.

Neither side managed to add to the scoreboard again but it was a far from dull game in which battling Chorley emerged with a good deal of credit.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.