A strong Mariners performance had Police in lots of trouble in Amstel First XV League rugby action at Nationals yesterday.

Troy Glasgow scored the winning try for Police 10 minutes from full time with the score at 17 points apiece after Mariners had held the lead throughout most of the game.

For Police, Gareth Davis had a great game, scoring two decisive tries in the second half.

Davis' second try caught Mariners completely by surprise when he took a short penalty five yards out and, with the Mariners' backs turned, drove over for a well-taken try.

Mariners were territorially ahead for most of the first half and exploited the weaknesses of the Police backs to score a try through Danny Soares following a fumble by Police full-back Scott Perry.

Mike Gorman then struck a penalty for Mariners with Gary Osborne replying for Police to bring the score to 10-3 at half-time.

His side trailing, Police captain John Harris had stern words for his troops during the break, realising they could be the first team to lose to Mariners twice in one season.

Those had a positive effect as within minutes Davis scored the first of his tries after running 30 yards down the touch-line.

Osborne converted carrying the score to 10 each.

Mariners' enthusiasm resulted in a try by John Brossard who dived on a loose ball following some good advantage play by referee Pat McHugh.

McHugh was awarded the Amstel Player of the Week for filling in as referee at the last minute and thereby giving 30 players a game of rugby.

Gorman converted Brossard's try giving Mariners a 17-10 lead.

But Police had a good resurgence in the forwards and made several good attacks on the Mariners line with Danny Cozens using his bulk to force Mariners back.

Davis' five-yard try and Osborne's conversion carried the game at 17 apiece.

And then came Glasgow's game winner, set up by Osborne as he broke away in the centre and made a good up-and-under where Mariners Peter Voss failed to clear and Glasgow accepted the ball gratefully to decide the game in Police's favour.

Renegades 19, Teachers 10 Renegades first-half lead of 16-0 proved too much for Teachers to pull back and although they outplayed Renegades in the second half it was too little too late.

An outstanding feature of the Teachers second-half display was the cohesion and driving power of their forwards who drove relentlessly at the Renegades forwards through tremendous efforts by Patrick Cooper and Anthony Cupidor.

Unfortunately Teachers were unable to turn this forward domination into points.

Renegades had an excellent first half where their backs showed excellent running and handling skills with Barry Whitehead scoring a superb individual try after shrugging off Alvin Harvey's tackle.

Matt Gorman punished a poor clearance kick from Teachers' centre Michael Montgomery and ran 30 yards for his only try of the game.

Whitehead kicked a 40-yard drop-goal and Phil Heaney kicked a penalty putting Renegades ahead at 16-0.

In the second half, Teachers took complete control with aggressive forward play supported superbly by Andrew Correia at scrum-half.

Correia set up the first Teachers try with a great assist by his back row as a pass to Montgomery resulted in a try.

Correia also scored a brilliant try of this own after more forward dominance to bring the score to 19-10.

The Teachers loss means that Renegades have almost certainly won the first XV league with four games remaining.

IN THE NICK OF TIME -- Teachers' Alvin Harvey gets off this pas just before a Renegades player makes the tackle.