KINGS Norton came back to Earth with a bump at the sparse surroundings of Bishop Castle on Saturday.

After the convincing 34-3 victory over Cleobury last week which put the club top of North Midlands One, they narrowly missed out in a hard-fought encounter.

After a long trip to the Welsh border, Castle clearly made better use of their uninviting surface by kicking over two quickfire penalties before Alex Page pulled one back for the visitors.

Significantly, Kings conspired against themselves just before half-time when Nick Thompson dropped a pass to John Hefford deep inside the Castle 22 that would have led to an almost certain try.

Instead, Kings came out for the second half 6-3 down and, despite piling on the pressure, they succumbed to a comical suckerpunch.

Skipper Peter May's attempted clearance was jostled over by two 'my-ball' calling Kings players who ran into each other and allowed Castle's winger to run in and score.

Kings responded by narrowing the score to 13-10 when No.8 Mark Waudby released Page to run in a 10-metre scrum, but despite more pressure and a try ruled out, they couldn't plug the gap.