Trailfinders Women fell to a 45-21 defeat against Loughborough Lightning away at a windy Loughborough University.
Tries for Carys Cox, Vicky Laflin and Sara Seye were not enough to take any points from their trip to the midlands.
This leaves Trailfinders Women 7th in the Allianz PWR table, with two wins from the first half of the season.
Loughborough dominated the first 10 minutes, with Trailfinders finding it difficult to exit from their own 22 into the wind.
As a result, Helen Nelson powered over at the back of a rolling maul for the home side with nine minutes gone in the game.
This score was quickly followed by a second for the Lightning off the back of another driving maul, making it 12-0 in as many minutes.
Trailfinders fired right back, though, and after the ball was worked wide, Abby Dow got on the end of a kick through and unselfishly fed Cox over the try line.
Sadia Kabeya would then add to the early flurry of tries, making the score 19-7 to the Lightning in only 18 minutes.
The frantic points scoring would then take a brief pause until the 31st minute, only for Loughborough to score back-to-back tries through Catherine O’Donnell and Bulou Mataitoga.
Despite the bleak scoreboard showing, Trailfinders continued to toil into the wind. Vicky Laflin steamed through a gap in the Lightning midfield just before halftime and crossed the white wash from 50 m out.
That try made it 33-14 heading into the break, leaving Trailfinders a big job in the second term if they were to get anything from their travels.
In the second half, it looked like they might make that improbable comeback reality.
Sara Seye crashed over the line from short range just 3 minutes into the second half to cut the deficit to two scores.
However, as much as Trailfinders tried, they could not find another breakthrough, with the Lightning going on to score two more tries in the final ten minutes, meaning the final score would read 45-21.
