SWINTON Lions suffered a heartbreaking 19-18 Championship loss to Sheffield Eagles, as Simon Brown’s astute drop goal two minutes from time decided it in favour of the visitors to Heywood Road.

There was little between the teams early on, so when referee John McMullen called ball-stealing against the Eagles in the seventh minute, Lions’ coach Stuart Littler wisely opted to get the points in the bank, with Chris Hankinson converting.

The Yorkshiremen’s response was magnificent, Ben Blackmore stepped and left the cover for dead to race in from half the length of the pitch before tapping down under the posts and right on the stroke of half time, he intercepted a Swinton pass and went 80 metres to score his second.

Swinton fought back with three second-half tries, Marcus Webb squeezed in at the corner, Craig Mullen accepted Josh Woods’ inviting pass and Chris Hankinson finished off down the right.

Hankinson kicked two out of three conversion to leave the game in a deadlock.

After their third try, Swinton failed to catch the kick off and returned the ball to Sheffield and from there, the Eagles worked the ball up the pitch, to where Brown struck the killer blow.