London Skolars’ last home game of the season saw them lose 35-18 to second place Workington Town, despite a determined second half comeback.

Workington piled the pressure on in the early stages, forcing two goal-line drop-outs. However the game was halted for fifteen minutes after Town’s Dave Weetman landed heavily in a tackle and he was stretchered off with a dislocated and broken ankle.

His side were quick off the mark when the game resumed, scoring straight away when Rhys Clarke took a short pass before running diagonally across the face of the posts to touch down.

Skolars’ first spell of pressure saw Paulos Latu held up over the line, but when the kick on the sixth tackle ran dead, Brad Holroyd raced to restart on the 20-metre line, passing halfway before he was stopped.

The winger finished off later in the set, taking a cut-out pass from Joe Brown.

When Jamie Doran was taken out by a late Mike Greenhalgh effort on the last tackle, Town had an easy penalty opportunity where the ball landed and Carl Forber gratefully took the two points.

They rounded off the first half with a 90-metre effort, Conor Fitzsimmons taking a kick and bursting past the oncoming Skolars, passing to Matt Henson, who moved to the right before Holroyd took the ball for his second try.

Skolars’ second half comeback started with the first set from the kick-off, Lameck Juma going over in the corner for his tenth try of the season.

They narrowed the gap further when Chis Ball opened a gap for Latu to score. A great kick from Doran hugged the touchline and Verela had no option but to concede a drop-out.

Fitzsimmons timed his run onto Doran’s low kick at the end of the resulting set to perfection.

The home side were soon down to 12 men when Michael Sykes was sin binned for a crusher tackle. Two minutes later Blain Marwood slipped a pass to Matt Henson for Town’s fifth try.

Skolars were far from finished, Ball and Leyland were both held up and Michael Sykes powered over the line.

Neil Thorman’s conversion saw him overtake his brother Paul as Skolars’ second highest all-time points scorer.

Workington were worried enough about another comeback that Holroyd kicked a drop-goal, but they extended their lead further when Doran broke the defensive line 40 metres out, brushing off two tackles before finally reaching out of a third tackle to score a fine individual try.

Skolars’ final game of the season is at North Wales Crusaders on Saturday.