Preston Grasshoppers 15 Wharfedale 19: Orwin can't believe his men lost!

He did manage to find explanations, though, despite saying that he couldn’t fault his battle-scarred side’s effort and praising their energy throughout a torrid afternoon.

“We were not accurate enough,” said Orwin. “And we started losing our discipline through frustration with the referee.” That brought a series of penalties for querying decisions. Some of that centred on a couple of disallowed tries from close-range efforts – “the lads are 100 per cent sure they scored both,” said the coach – but also on what he described as “a lot of high shots” (including one which left front-row forward Danny Maher with a badly cut ear), mostly unpunished by referee Dave Charlton.

Nevertheless, Hoppers looked to have the game under control early on, opening up a 10-point lead inside 15 minutes, leading in 15-5 at half-time and still being ahead after an hour.

Resilient Wharfedale, however, kept on coming, got four points ahead and clung on to their lead in a frenetic last quarter.

Sprightly Hoppers led when full-back Josh Ree popped over an early penalty and converted Ally Murray’s try after the lock reacted fastest to Greg Smith’s kick through.

Wharfedale winger Bradley Viner had twice gone close, denied by the excellent defence which was a hallmark of Hoppers’ afternoon, but there was no stopping experienced No.8 Rob Baldwin, who crashed over from close range for an unconverted try.

An amazing 20-metre driving maul was rewarded with hooker Harry Holden’s 17th try of the campaign, but errors crept into the hosts’ game after the break, and a lost line-out in the corner, a knock-on inside the visitors’ 22 and those “back-chat” penalties summed up their demoralising second half.

The losing bonus point leaves them in 11th place, but wins for bottom two Harrogate and Billingham saw them close the gap with just four games left.