I loved it! Taylor the best goal hanger in the league

ON the last day of the season, Nathan Taylor – ‘the best goal hanger the league has ever seen’ – pipped Benjamin Brownlie to the top try scorer award in National 1.

The Cinderford hooker secured the award with a brace in last week’s 32-32 draw with Leeds Tykes and Taylor was ecstatic to take the try scoring title from his fellow No.2 Brownlie.

“I loved it! It was a bit of a mix and match side that we had out in the end, but the boys did well to come away from the game with three points,” Taylor told The Rugby Paper.

“I managed to get the two tries pretty early on and all the lads knew I only needed two to get top, so for the second one 12 out of the 15 lads joined the maul to make sure I got the try.”

Brownlie had been leading the charts for the vast majority of the season, but Taylor scored 12 tries in five games to overturn the deficit and the former London Welsh front row was quick to let his Cambridge counterpart know.

He said: “I’ve been dropping Ben a few messages to wind him up a little bit on LinkedIn and Twitter but he’s happy for me as it’s just friendly banter and bragging rights. It’s been good to chase him in the try battle.

“He’s a good lad and a cracking player and we knew it would go down to the wire and the fact I scored so many tries in the latter stages really put the pressure on. I said to him we’ll share a beer and discuss all our tries next year. It’s good to have banter alongside the competition.”

All of Taylor’s 28 tries have been from the back of Cinderford’s formidable driving maul leading to the club’s Twitter account naming him ‘the best goal hanger the league has ever seen’.

Taylor added: “All of my tries were off driving mauls which makes it even funnier! Someone has got to score them, if I’m not there someone else has got to be there. A huge credit has to go to the forwards as they’re doing all the pushing and I’m just driving the ship. I don’t mind if they call me the goal hanger as long as we get the win, which we have done the majority of the season.”