Teachers defeated Police in a make-up game last weekend to move within two points of Renegades at the top of the league going into rugby's Christmas break.

Police are a further two points behind following their 20-13 defeat at Malabar, while Mariners trail in last place.

Teachers opened the scoring after good turnover ball and a break from scrumhalf Porter set new centre Peter Dunlop up to score. Way missed the difficult conversion.

Police answered back almost immediately with a try by the powerful James Peagem who ran down the touchline, looked for support inside, but saw it was lacking, and drove through some weak tackling to touch down by the corner flag. The coversion was missed, leaving the score at 5-5.

Teachers' pugnacious David Porter saw an opening down the blind side and darted over from close restoring his lead 10-5 just before the half-time whistle.

The second half saw the game turn ugly with tempers flaring. Police vice-captain Dave Bird was read the riot act after a heated altercation with Bobby Hurdle.

Dave Porter extended Teachers' lead to 13-5 with the well struck penalty. Police went through a golden patch and mounted some effective forward drives but their promising attack was stopped by some cynical handling in the ruck. Police fullback Andrew Flint stepped up and slotted the awarded penalty to narrow the margin to 13-8.

With 20 minutes to go, a break from the base of a messy ruck by Dave Porter saw the Teachers captain break through a bewildered Police pack. Porter crossed over out wide to further extend his side's lead to 20-8.

Police fought back when Mike Arbuthnot touched down between the sticks to reduce the arrears to five points.

And the Blues piled the pressure on 14-man Teachers after prop Billy McNiven was shown a yellow card for dissention. A final break down the left flank saw Arbuthnot connect with the hard charging Flint and almost magically produce the crucial score but the play broke down.