Malton and Norton missed a good chance to strengthen their promotion bid when they were held 13-13 by Leeds Corinthians at The Gannock.

For the second week running Malton failed to play to their usual high standard but at least they managed to gain one point when they could quite easily have missed out altogether against a Corinthians side desperate to get back into the promotion hunt.

Malton could not have made a worse start when, after five minutes, they conceded a soft try when they failed to clear from the base of a scrum ten metres out and allowed Corinthians scrum-half Russ Bradley to seize the loose ball to go over.

With Malton struggling to find their usual fluent game, Corinthians kept up the pressure with No 8 forward Max Miliswa causing havoc whenever he had the ball in hand. The pressure finally told on Malton when another defensive blunder gifted full-back Richard Merritt with Corinthians' second try.

Only then did Malton wake up and exert anything like pressure on the visitors. After winning the ball in midfield it was quickly transferred to the left to feed full-back Ian Cooke, who entered the line at just the right time to score Malton's first try and narrow the gap at half-time.

Having been suitably advised at the break, Malton knew what they had to do. Skipper Chris Creber certainly had the bit between his teeth and, making the best of the service he was receiving, began to stamp his authority on the game with some typical strong breaks. From one of those breaks he levelled the scores with a beautiful try.

But Corinthians were far from finished and kept up the onslaught and Malton had to keep the visitors at bay with some good defence but were forced to concede a penalty for holding on to the ball in the tackle. Fly-half John Duggan added the three points to give Corinthians a slender lead with ten minutes remaining.

Malton dug deep, though, and returned to the other end of the field to be awarded a similar penalty themselves, which Cooke converted to again level the scores. The last few minutes were nail-biting for the large crowd as Malton fought desperately to hang on to a point.

Malton remain in pole position for the second promotion place in Yorkshire Three behind Heath.

One noteable fact to emerge from the game was the continued improvement of the second row pairing of Duncan Foster and Richard Webster, who secured a lot of lineout ball and covered every inch of the ground.

Updated: 11:49 Monday, April 01, 2002