ALTRINCHAM Kersal's first XV were on the wrong end of 40-27 defeat at Burnage in North One West on Saturday.

Kersal started brightly and were 10-7 up with just five minutes left of the first half.

But mistakes cost them before the break as Burnage went into half time 19-10 up.

Seven minutes after the restart, Kersal were on the back foot again and Burnage's Ralph Lawson bagged a hat-trick.

The game seemed to quickly slip away from the visitors and with the score moving onto 40-10, it could quite easily have been all over.

But Kersal, still without key injured players, started a fightback with every man fighting for everything they could, pushing Burnage out of their comfort zone.

Individual tries came from JP Singleton and Doug Whyley, and a penalty and two conversions were neatly secured by Matt Tully in the last 10 minutes.

It was too little too late for Kersal but they will hope to kick on this weekend when they host Blackburn, kick off 2.15pm.

Elsewhere, the second XV saw their nine-match unbeaten run ended by visitors Widnes on Saturday, losing 15-12, while the thirds were beaten by Glossop.

On Sunday, the Under-17s Colts had their first fixture in Conference League B against a Heaton Moor team who have shown good form in recent games.

The Kersal boys have been working hard to improve certain areas of their game over the mid-season break, specifically set-piece moves and line-out consistency.

Evidence of their progress was clear throughout the game with the line-out win ratio significantly up on previous weeks and several well-executed penalty moves used to good effect.

With tries from Jay Thompson, Anthony Tanner and Tom Gill, Kersal secured a 15-0 victory.

The U13s were also successful as they travelled to Rochdale, winning 45-15.

Meanwhile, the Kersal ladies lost 81-0 at home against Didsbury TocH.