Kingdom comes to rescue with late penalty

A GARY Kingdom penalty in the seventh minute of injury-time gave Taunton Titans a narrow victory over a spirited Henley Hawks at Dry Leas.

It was a close encounter throughout, and although the Hawks out-scored their visitors by four tries to three, they failed to close the game out.

Ton Hall crashed over for an early Hawks try after a clean break from Alan Awcock, but both sides made errors as they failed to settle into the game.

And after the Hawks failed to capitalise on possession and phases it was Taunton that struck twice quickly, both the result of a mistake by the home side while trying to attack.

A short side move from Henley broke down and Taunton winger Freddie Fraser gathered the ball and raced 40m to score – Kingdom converting.

Conor Harbison then broke clear from a scrum, evading a number of tackles to score Taunton’s second.

Henley responded well and pressure eventually told when Dave Manning drove over from close range – Liam O’Neill converting.

O’Neill started the second period with a converted try of his own, but Taunton hit back through a Kingdom penalty, only for Sam Portland to outpace their defence to score in the corner. Nick Mason had the final say, though, scoring the converted try that set up Kingdom to kick the match-winning penalty.