Hornets began, though in good style. The promising partnership of Braddish and Butterworth at half back unzipped a tenacious Panthers defence after 13 minutes to send Mark McCully in. Three minutes later a huge break by Gorski took Hornets into close contention and Braddish sneaked in under the radar for the first of a deserved hat-trick.

Despite the deficit, Blackpool were playing some tight, direct football with loose forward Barton looking most likely to break the line with his determined running. The Panthers capitalised on this momentum after 26 minutes when a neat pass for Redford sent Andrews in wide out to put his side back in the game.

Hornets hit back almost immediately. Blackpool forced Hornets back with a deep kick -then knocked on the resulting drop-out. From the scrum, Varkulis took the ball round the defence then straightened up his run to power in for a superb try from 60 metres, leaving a trail of defenders in his wake.

Just past the half hour Hornets produced the try of the game. Braddish dinked a perfectly balanced chip over the defesive line, Sam Butterworth darted in to gather amidst a wrong-footed defence and his stepping run found Dave Alstead in support. Two on onw with the full back there was only ever going to be one outcome and Alstead finished off a move of delicious precision.

But Blackpool proved that they had one or two tricks in the bag too -and right on the hooter, ex-Hornet - and Panthers' man of the match - Liam McGovern launched a searching cross-field kick into the massive in-goal, where Bretherton was first to react and touch down.

Half-time 10-22 and, despite the low-key atmosphere, both teams playing some industrious and creative football.

Blackpool began the second half with a bang - good interpassing between Hough and McGovern creating a big overlap for Danny Arnold to score wide out.

Then, out of nothing came the brawl. Referee Colin Morris chose Hornets' Doran and Panthers' Callan as the culprits and both were dispatched.

On the next phase of play, Phil Cantillon scrambled in from 18 inches to reassert Hornets' control. But this Blackpool side are a stubborn proposition and hit back with a nicely worked tap and chip over a hobbling Chris Giles for Johnstone to score.

With Alstead yellow-carded for dissent, John Braddish grabbed the game by the scruff and dragged it away from Blackpool. Firstly he spun out of several grasping tackles to score; repeating the feat eight minutes later to secure the points; his impressive personal tally of 20 playing a major part in proceedings.

Blackpool had the last word, with Johnstone the beneficiary of a big Hough cut-out pass that exposed Hornets lack of numbers out wide.

"A win's a win," said Bobbie Goulding afterwards, "... but individual brilliance got us out of it. We didn't play as a team - we played them in ones." He went on: "The enthusiasm in training is unbelievable, but come sunday it was different. There are no excuses, but we are just not killing teams off - we got a win, but I'm not happy."

There are lots of positives to take from this one, though. Lee Hansen's go-forward; the offloading of Gareth Price; the strength on attack and defence of Richard Varkulis all caught the eye. But most pleasing of all was the half-back partnership of John Braddish and Sam Butterworth. With more space and time to work with, Braddish bossed the back of the ruck all afternoon; Sam Butterworth a jinking box-of-tricks who had Blackpool on the back-foot every time he carried the ball.

Equally pleasing was the turn-out from Hornets' supporters. In a crowd that looked significantly larger than the 220 announced (there were more than that standing on the club-house side and as many again in the stand), Hornets provided the majority of the attendees.