This point guaranteed Bulls pole position and in doing so gives them home advantage for this Saturday’s qualifying play-off against York Lokomotive (kick off 2.30pm), who finished runners-up.

The winner of Saturday’s game at Dukes Park will then have a week off and home advantage in the regional final.

The loser plays next week at home against the winner of third-placed Pirates and fourth-placed Leeds Akkies.

Scarborough Pirates23

Bridlington Bulls23

Both sides showed their intentions early with strong runs and hard hits.

Silly penalties for talking back to the referee put Scarborough on the front foot and they went close but excellent cover tackles by Paul Campbell and Danny Collinson saved a certain try.

From the resulting scrum, Bulls attacked and on the fourth tackle Campbell received the ball 60 metres out and he sprinted clear, beat two men and dummied inside twice to Collinson, fooling the Pirates’ defenders, and scoring. Paul Kirby converted.

They went further in front 15 later when Scarborough conceded a penalty near their own try line and Chris King took a quick tap and fed Ollie Smith who dived under the posts. Again, Kirby converted, 0-12.

Scarborough rallied and former Bulls player Chris Keld dummied his way through a static defence and crashed through to score. James Millward added the extras.

Pirates realised they were still in the game and pulled out all the stops with relentless attack on the Brid line. Try saving tackles by Luke Thompson, Collinson and Scott Eccles kept them out.

Early in the second half Scarborough went on the attack and poor tackling gave Sam Millward the opportunity to score, and he converted to level the score at 12-12.

Soon after King received the ball and stepped around three would-be tacklers and set off on a 80 metre run before passing inside to Thomas Radley who scored under the posts, giving Kirby an easy conversion.

Five minutes later a huge tackle on Millward dislodged the ball and put Bulls back on the attack. Kirby received the ball and passed wide to Collinson who fed Dave Robson. He made 30 metres, drew the last man and passed to ever-supporting Radley who scored out wide. Kirby was unlucky with the conversion, but the Bulls led 22-12.

Scarborough put Bulls’ defence under immense pressure and penned them in their own half and received a penalty for indiscipline. Millward took a quick tap to himself and dived in the corner, but he missed the conversion.

Late in the game, Scarborough soon had possession again and went the length of the field in five tackles before Oliver Battye scored in the corner, and to level the match Millward spectacularly kicked the difficult extra points.

In the dying seconds Scarborough pushed the Bulls back to their line and Jason Dunn stepped up and kicked what looked like the match winning drop-goal.