THERE was no elation, not even relief for Kevan Oliphant when he landed a tricky conversion with the last kick of the game to heap more agony on his old teammates on Saturday.

"I don't know what to feel," said the Mowden Park player-coach after his kick sailed over from ten metres in from the right touchline.

"West need the points and I don't want to see them go down. I still feel a lot for them.

"They wanted it more. They fought for everything and they didn't deserve to lose.

"We put it to our players before the game that it was not going to be easy, but we were very poor, which is disappointing because we played well last week."

It would have been West's first away win since beating Orrell in December, 1999, and they were left to rue two missed penalties midway through the first half.

Fly half Jamie Connolly hit a post with a straightforward chance then pushed the next one to the right as West dominated the first half to lead 14-3.

Fly half Oliphant went very close to scoring all Mowden's points as he grabbed two of their three tries and almost squeezed in at the left corner for the other before passing inside for winger Steve Jones, another former West man, to touch down.

Oliphant wants to stay with Mowden purely as a player, and among the potential candidates to be the new coach is former West stalwart Dave Stubbs, who watched Saturday's game but doesn't feel he can offer Mowden the commitment they want.

There have been a few upward kinks in the downward curve this season, such as the draw at Dudley Kingswinford, but the first half on Saturday was dreadful.

Although he shows no lack of commitment, taking prop James Isaacson on loan from Newcastle has brought no real benefit and it seems this could have been his last game. It would make more sense for Mowden to take Falcons' hooker Billy Balshen on loan as he looks unlikely to feature at Newcastle for the rest of the season.

The first meeting between the clubs for 15 years was expected to be a home banker. But Mowden were facing their fourth successive defeat until they began to show more urgency after the break.

They nosed ahead with 20 minutes left, which is often the point at which the young West side are overpowered. But this time they fought back and regained the lead seven minutes from time when a perfectly-weighted chip by Connolly allowed full back Darren Thomas to touch down.

Connolly converted for a 24-18 lead and they looked capable of hanging on until a 60-metre touch kick by Oliphant put them under pressure.

Then he applied his cruellest twist in the second minute of injury time when he chipped over the West defence and the ball bounced awkwardly for Thomas, allowing Oliphant to hack on and score.

Newcastle Academy player Mark Laycock scored West's first try after five minutes, but had to retire with ligament damage at half-time, leaving West with two flankers on the wings.

Connolly set up the other try two minutes before the interval when he dummied inside then broke on the outside to send centre Mark Thompson over.

New scrum half Richard Holbrough showed some lively touches for Mowden and four minutes after the interval he put Mark Bedworth away up the left.

The centre lacked the pace to make the most of the opportunity, but he passed back inside and quick ruck ball allowed Oliphant to glide through the gap left by Stuart Bennett and score under the posts.

He added the conversion followed ten minutes later by a simple drop goal to reduce the gap to one point and it looked like the same old story for West when Jones scored after 60 minutes.

This stemmed from No 8 Tom Long robbing West of the ball on halfway and he was also involved with good support work in the build-up to the winning try.

In between West came back gamely with outstanding flanker Tim Sawyer driving on to set up a penalty under the posts for Connolly, which he followed with the chip for Thomas's try.

West visit Bedford Athletic next week and if they lose they will be nine points adrift of the third-bottom club with six games left.

Coach John Stabler feels there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel, but it will be a long haul back from North Division One.