They weathered an early storm, jumped out to a 16-point lead then couldn't hang on in a frantic finish, with the Newtown Jets finishing 28-all with the North Sydney Bears in their round 18 Intrust Super Premiership match.
In what was the second time the two teams had played out a draw in 2018, coming on the back of a 22-all draw in their previous encounter, the Jets and Bears would share the points as well as the Frank Hyde Shield.
A fortuitous North Sydney try after Kyle Turner pounced on a bouncing ball in the in-goal area put the home team on top 4-0 after the first 20 minutes but momentum would quickly shift.
Sosaia Feki was first to score for the Jets on the end of an exchange of passes and when Kyle Flanagan converted the Newtown side had their first lead at 6-0.
Back rower Briton Nikora, who has made a habit of scoring tries on the right edge for Newtown, ran strongly onto a Flanagan short ball and then Jack Williams scooted through for a clever individual try and with one conversion successful from the two attempts it was 16-4 to the Jets.
The Bears gave themselves some hope when hooker Billy Britain scored from dummy half but an Aaron Gray try shortly after, the Sharks centre showing good strength to beat a couple of tacklers, pushed the margin back out to 12 when Flanagan's sideline kick made it 22-10.
A Braden Uele line break set up Matt Evans for the fifth Newtown try to push the score out to 28-10, before an awful refereeing blunder in awarding a try to the Bears when the ball and the attacker were over the dead ball line, reduced the margin to 12-points with 12 minutes to go.
The Bears would then make everyone in the Newtown camp nervous when a bust through the middle of the ruck was finished off by the North Sydney fullback Viliami Kaveinga and it was game-on at 28-22 with still eight-minutes of the match to go.
And the Bears weren't quite finished, winger Jesse Arthars diving over in the corner, leaving Hawkins with a tricky sideline conversion, however the young Bear was up to the task in levelling the scores at 28-all.
The final result was something of a set back to the Jets hopes of consolidating a top four berth, but the draw left them in third position and the one point could prove valuable by the end of the 2018 Intrust Super Premiership season.
JETS 28
Matt Evans, Aaron Gray, Briton Nikora, Jack WIlliams, Sosaia Feki tries Kyle Flanagan 4 goals
drew the
BEARS 28
Kyle Turner, Billy Britain, Curtis Johnson, Viliami Kaveinga Jesse Arthars tries, Dean Hawkins 4 goals
