Yorkshire Division One: Malton & Norton 21 Heath 19

THIS was Malton & Norton's third encounter with Heath this season and, as in the previous two in Halifax (25-23 league win for Heath, 10-3 Yorkshire Shield victory for Malton), the result could hardly have been closer.

Heath led 19-7 in this match, and had they held on there could have been few complaints.

Only the home team's scrum power kept their line intact in the first 20 minutes but they did concede a 15th-minute penalty to Ezra Hinchliffe. Loose passes or poor ball retention foiled the hosts when their pack did make ground.

However, they made no mistake after 25 minutes from a scrum in the Heath 22. Josh Heggie picked up at the base and drove into the defence for prop Ben Boothman to get the all-important touchdown. Zweli Sodladla landed the conversion.

Heath came straight back, and when Malton fly half Nick Daley was sin-binned for pulling back an opponent, Hinchliffe narrowed the gap to a point before a further penalty deep into injury-time gave them a 9-7 interval lead.

The hosts then paid for another yellow card – this time to Sodladla for a late tackle – as Heath kicked to the corner and were controversially awarded a penalty try from the maul that resulted from the line-out.

Hinchliffe's conversion made it 16-7 before he slotted a kick when Malton were penalised in front of their posts for offside.

Another blow came in the 55th minute when Heath lost a second front-rower, resulting in uncontested scrums, which took away a lot of Malton's power.

Quick thinking by slipper Sam Triffitt two minutes later revived them as he took a tap penalty and handed off several would-be tacklers to score, Sodladla's deputy Ian Cooke adding the conversion.

With their picking and driving out of the top drawer, Heggie made sure that Malton cashed in on a series of scrums on the Heath line, making ground each time to pave the way for Boothman's second try in the 65th minute, which levelled the scores, Sodladla converting for victory.

Malton have a re-arranged league match at North Ribblesdale on Saturday.

Malton & Norton: Z Sodladla; H Coulson, V Dyantjies, S Harrison, I Cooke; M N Daley, P Angus; E Gwilliam, J Thornton, B Boothman, J Rounthwaite, J Lumley, A Coe, S Triffitt, J Heggie. Replacements (all used): S Emms, N Salisbury, T Lowry.