Prop Paul Reid and centre Rob Morgan both made scoring returns for Mariners, who nearly caused an upset with a sparkling second-half display.

But Renegades always managed to stay one step ahead, responding with tries of their own every time Mariners threatened to take the upper hand.

Phil Heaney converted all five Renegades tries and cleared his lines well with deep kicks into the Mariners half.

His powerful forwards capitalised, scoring three typical forward tries from scrums and rolling mauls near the Mariners goal-line.

Mariners delighted the crowd with their direct running and support play in the loose with Michael Smith, Morgan, and Danny McGavern time and again carving up the opposition defence, but often the final pass went astray.

Morgan, Smith and Simon Hurstenstein grabbed the second-half tries which kept Mariners in the hunt.

But a terrible handling error by Mariners' backs when the score was 28-25 with 10 minutes to play proved crucial, as it let Heaney in for a try from 10 metres out.

McGavern, in his last game for Mariners, gave an inspirational performance and his attacking prowess will be missed.

Teachers 10 Police 15 An injury-hit Teachers side able to field only six regular first-teamers made Police struggle.

Teachers surprisingly enjoyed territorial advantage and Police only took the lead minutes from the end when Gareth Davies scrambled over following a pushover scrum.

Ten minutes into the game and against all odds, Teachers fly-half Brian Bailey ran through a gap inside Alan Oliver to cross under the posts for a try converted by Kevin Harris.

But a classic blind-side try for Police five minutes later, when Gareth Lewis touched down after good work by number eight Dave Bird and Davies, pulled the score back to 7-5.