In one of the great ironies rugby league has a habit of tossing up, Canaries fullback Jason Raper had the chance to level the scores after Rob Buasareau’s 78^th minute four-pointer but his conversion attempt sailed wide.

Just seven days earlier it was Collies No.1 Kyle Eather whose attempted leveler was waved away in a 16-14 win to the Canaries. A draw could well have been a fitting result on both occasions but, with the ledger now 1-1, it’s  a score that will only fully be settled come finals time. 

The Dogs led 10-6 at the end of a first-half lacking the intensity of their first meeting, but the match turned into a thriller down the stretch, with both sides posting tries in a frantic final six minutes.

Collies hooker Jake Jackson’s try, hot on the heels of pinpoint 40-20 kick from five-eighth Jarrod Boyle, proved the match-winner after Blake Phillips and Josh Bryant traded tries midway through the second stanza.

“The good thing about rugby league is there’s always next week and to get the opportunity to play against the premiers and a side that rolled you last week, doesn’t happen to often,” Collegians coach Nathan Fien said post-match.

“We were really excited about it. We knew we were far from our best last week and knew that we had a lot of improvement in us.

“I thought if we could build a bit pf pressure the result could turn around and I thought we were a lot better in that area today and we were able to build a lot more pressure  through our kicking game.

“I thought Boyley in particular was sensational, that 40-20 really put us on the front foot in that second half when the game was on the line.

“Dapto are a quality side and they showed their star qualities, they never went away for the whole 80 minutes. I thought we were on top at times and they seemed to conjure up some things that put us back on the back foot.

“They’re a class side and we needed to be at our best today which we were and I’m really happy we were able to bounce back, turn the tables and get those two competition points.”

Ben Jones opened the visitors account with a try from close range but things were quickly locked up at 6-all when Keith Lulia swooped on a fumble from the Dogs in their own in-goal.

Collies had a mountain of possession and field position in the latter part of the half and it told when Saxon Onur crossed three minutes before the break for a 10-6 lead.

The Canaries struck first after the resumption through Bryant but Phillips barged over minutes later to re-take the lead. The Canaries led again when Buaserau scored but the Dogs went back to the lead through Jackson six minutes from time.

Buaserau’s second gave Raper the chance to level things up with two minutes left but his attempted conversion missed the mark, with coach Michael Henderson conceding his side missed the jump in the first half.

“We lost it in the first half,” Henderson said.

“We turned over a lot of ball, gave them a lot of possession and we did well to only be down four at halftime. We didn’t make them do any work in the first half and it showed.

“To their credit, I can’t remember them making an error in the second half and they were pretty good in the first half to. If you come up against a side that completes at 90 per cent and you turn that much ball over you not going to win.

“It was one of those games, neither side got too far ahead and we put ourselves in a position at the end there to win it, but you learn your biggest lessons from losses and we got a fair lesson today.”

Saturday saw another thriller at Gibson Park with Thirroul and Wests fighting out a 16-all draw while Helensburgh clicked into top gear with a 56-14 win over Corrimal.