ALL teams know that winning at home is important, and Blackburn went all-out to ensure their unbeaten record at home this season remained intact.

They tackled as though their lives depended on it, and gave Otley little opportunity to get any real foothold in the game.

To make matters worse, Otley’s game showed little of the hallmarks of the previous week when they beat Billingham and their play was littered with unforced errors and too many penalties, especially in the second half.

Blackburn kicked off with the wind behind them and after a double knock-on got a penalty at the scrum. Putting it into the right hand corner a long throw was probably not the best option and Otley got the ball and endeavoured to work their way out of their half.

However, Blackburn did not let go and after nine minutes they took the lead when Tom Burtonwood went over in the left hand corner.

Three minutes later Marc Maher broke through the Otley defence to set up Tom Lavelle, Patrick Gaffey adding the conversion.

Just after the half-hour mark Otley reduced the deficit when, having to fight for every inch of territory they got two penalties.

The second of those went into the corner and after a couple of pick and goes, the ball was spread across the pitch before coming back again, a long pass giving Callum Irvine the space to go over.

With the half-time whistle looming, Otley gave a way a penalty on their 22, Gaffey adding three points to make the half-time score 15-5.

With the wind behind them, clearing a 10 point deficit was not impossible. On 48 minutes Blackburn were caught offside, Joe Rowntree stepping up to get three points.

A 50-22 kick by Irvine gave Otley an advantage, but Blackburn were able to push them out of their 22 and the visitors subsequently lost the ball. On 58 minutes Joe Rowntree got another penalty to make the score 15-11 but missed another one three minutes later.

Blackburn launched a series of attacks and nearly scored down the right but Otley were able to stop them. Undeterred they continued, often putting Otley on the wrong side of the referee’s whistle.

On 75 minutes Blackburn got a penalty in front of Otley’s post, electing for a scrum.

From that scrum the ball went right and then left, flanker Jordan Pearson going over with Gaffey getting his second conversion.

Then in the dying moments replacement Corey Logan went over in the corner to give the hosts the bonus point win.

This result brings Otley’s continuous winning run of league matches to an end, with them notching up 16 consecutive wins (including the win against Luctonians at the end of the 2019-20 season).

It beats the previous best of 12 consecutive wins in the 2007-08 season when Otley went onto win the league when they won 23 of their 26 games.

Otley return to action on Saturday when they travel to Alnwick in yet another league fixture.