Fartown stunned by penalty.

ROOKIE referee Paul Lee almost cost Fartown victory over Batley at the McAlpine Stadium when he awarded a controversial penalty in the closing stages.

With just two minutes remaining and trailing 15-10, Batley's influential Australian scrum half Glen Tomlinson made a late challenge on the grounded Richard Pearson, but instead of penalising Tomlinson's over-exuberance, the official singled out Pearson and Batley were awarded the penalty.

Even the Batley players were at a loss to explain it, but nevertheless they were not going to let their good fortune stand in the way of a try-scoring chance, and 30 seconds later Tomlinson fed Paul Harrison to score in the corner.

All that stood in the way of Batley and a dramatic late victory was a touchline conversion from Simon Wilson, but his kick faded just to the right of the posts and the Fartown faithful breathed a massive sigh of relief.

Earlier in the game, Greg Pearce had landed an early penalty and a 15th-minute drop goal, which in the final analysis was the difference between the two sides.

Simon Reynolds scored Fartown's only try of the game, after Dave King had put the outstanding Mick Taylor in the clear and the prop charged through before releasing Reynolds to score.

Pearce added the conversion plus three more penalties to give the home side a useful lead.

But despite being down to 10 men at one stage when Jeff Grayshon and Wayne Heron were both sin-binned, Batley hit back with two tries which set up the grandstand finale.

Tomlinson was later reported to the Rugby League by referee Lee, following an incident involving a touch-judge at the end of the match.

Fartown coach George Fairbairn said the game against third-placed Batley was one of the best Second Division encounters for years.

And Fairbairn was hoping they could build on the performance which attracted the biggest home crowd of the season, 4,031.

"Obviously I'm delighted at the result and I believe that if we can beat sides who are above us then we're heading in the right direction," he said.

"Batley's scrambling defence was excellent and they made it exceptionally difficult for us. This was a very fine win."

CAPTION(S):

DEFENSIVE WALL: Dave King puts Huddersfield on the attack against Batley at the McAlpine Stadium (Examiner ref: 7658-94)