A TRIP to London to face Richmond lies ahead for Kendal after a hard-fought 36-31 victory over Reading in the second round of the Powergen Cup at Mint Bridge on Saturday.

It was a tit for tat sort of a match as far as scoring was concerned,but Kendal had the best of the first half, building up a 19-5 lead on the half hour with tries from Gary Holmes, Paul Dodds and Dan Stephens.

Two yellow cards in three minutes going up to half time, with forwards Jim Bracken and Richard Harryman both sinbinned, allowed the visitors to score a second unconverted try after having another disallowed.

Turning round 19-10 ahead, Kendal extended their lead when Jon Ladell hacked on to win a sprint to the touch down from a counter-attack which started with a clearance kick from behind the Kendal posts.

Reading stayed in touch with some good breaks out of defence themselves and two converted tries cut the deficit to 26-24 with 15 minutes to play.

Kendal quickly responded with a fluid backs move instigated by Armstrong's elusive running before well-timed passing puts Dodds in on the wing and Stephens converted.

Reading cancelled that out almost immmediately to close the gap to 33-31 but wasted good chances to break through with sloppy handling.

Instead Stephens kicked a 40-metre penalty with a minute of normal time remaining and Kendal held on for a 36-31 win.

Richmond beat Hertford in their tie to become Kendal's opponents in the next round.