By Neil Bonnar

SEDGLEY Tigers slipped deeper into relegation trouble with a heavy defeat at Blackheath.

But with the points gap between the Whitefield men and National League One safety unchanged, hope continues to flicker that they could yet pull off the greatest of escapes.

Ninth-placed Loughborough Students visit Park Lane on Saturday (2.30pm kick off) which is as close to a must-win game as is possible.

Despite the size of their 53-17 defeat at Blackheath last weekend, the Tigers continued the story of their season by putting up a strong challenge only to be ultimately overcome.

The London men looked to have the game in the bag when they went into half time 31-3 ahead.

But Sedgley, who had Simon Parrott sin-binned in the 13th minute, hit back strongly after the interval, totally dominating in a 15-minute period in which the sixth-placed home side barely got a touch of the ball.

The Tigers, who had inflicted the second heaviest defeat on Blackheath this season in the reverse fixture, capitalised on the hosts having Richard Pike despatched to the sin bin, scoring two converted tries.

Fly-half Steve Collins strode through some laboured tackling and second-row James Lloyd peeled away from his pack to dive over, with both scores converted by Mike Riley who had earlier kicked a penalty.

With the score 31-17, Blackheath were rattled. They eased the nerves with another try in the 56th minute.

Another Blackheath sin-binning opened the door for Sedgley again but they could not capitalise.

And when Blackheath touched down 11 minutes from time the game was won.