Castleford Tigers earned a 28-28 victory over Hull FC at the Mend-a-Hose Jungle today to make it two wins out of three in the new season, while the Airlie Birds are still searching for their second league victory of the season.
In a competitive encounter Hull took the lead on 22 minutes when halfback Marc Sneyd touched down and converted his own score, before adding a penalty two minutes later to extend the lead to eight points.
The Tigers opened their account on 29 minutes when Jamie Ellis gave a smart pass to Greg Minikin, who was able to get over the line inside the corner post for an unconverted try.
And the Tigers took the lead just before the interval, when Jake Webster was put through a gap in the Hull defence to score under the posts! Luke Gale’s goal made it 10-8.
In the first ten minutes of the second half the Tigers extended their lead to twelve points with tries from Mike McMeeken and Michael Shenton, with the latter coming after a superb 40-20 from Gale, who converted the first try but failed with the second.
Hull fought back when Faraimo touched down from Albert Kelly’s pass, but Sneyd was unable to convert.
The Tigers were in again, however, when Shenton touched down for his second try, with Gale converting this time to make it 26-12 with 15 minutes remaining.
But Hull were in no mood to surrender and they replied when Mickey Paea forced his way over the line with Sneyd’s conversion reducing the margin to eight points.
But the Black and Whites suffered a blow when Kelly was injured trying to tackle Shenton and he had to leave the field.
McMeeken was held up over the line before Gale added a late penalty goal for a 28-18 final scoreline in front of 9,365 spectators.
A full match report and photos will feature in Monday’s edition of League Express, online from Sunday night and in the shops from Monday morning.
