Yorkshire Two
Malton and Norton 55pts,
Ripon 10pts
The Gannock was graced with the presence of the president of the Rugby Football Union, Derek Morgan, for this North Yorkshire derby. His visit seemed to inspire Malton and Norton as they finally found the form they've been searching for. Their second-half display completely swamped Ripon and put them in second place in the league.
The early exchanges were equal with the heavy but unfit Ripon forwards causing problems for the home pack. Malton's skill levels always looked much higher than the visitors' and, in almost perfect conditions, the extra class began to tell.
After 15 minutes, a good Malton move sent centre Liam Cowton over for the first score. The Malton pack were beginning to make inroads, which allowed the excellent back row to take on more attacking responsibility, a task they relished.
A series of drives by the home forwards set up a good position 30 metres out and fly-half Chris Creber fed rampaging number eight James McKay, who burst through two tackles before showing his pursuers a clean pair of heels to score in the corner. Unfortunately for Malton, McKay was then shown a yellow card by the referee and spent the mandatory ten minutes in the sin bin.
During this time, Malton lost a little discipline and conceded a penalty try when they were adjudged to have collapsed a moving maul near to their line. Scott McAra converted for Ripon and also added a penalty shortly afterwards to level the scores.
No sooner had McKay returned to the action than Malton were again reduced in numbers when full-back Will Barber was forced to sit out for ten minutes. Malton held out to half-time without further damage and the large crowd looked forward to a tight tussle in the second period.
Now back to full strength, Malt had other ideas. With Creber sensibly keeping Ripon on the back foot with good line kicking, the home side were always in command. The first of seven second-half tries came from a forward drive from which scrum-half Jon Newsome emerged as the joyful scorer. In a spell of scintillating rugby from Malt, Creber grabbed two tries and McKay notched his second. Substitute Will Jones, Richard Webster and Neil Gilbertson, who made a good return to the first team, added further scores. Will Barber converted five of the tries.
Again, this was a total team performance, but there were excellent performances from the back row of Richard Webster, James McKay and Andy Mitchell. The line-out work of Webster and Duncan Foster was also almost faultless.
Although the personnel were almost identical, the three-quarters were unrecognisable from the previous week's unit, as they did everything at pace and kicked admirably from defence.
Saturday's game at third-placed West Park Bramhope will be a proverbial six-pointer. In this sort of form, Malton have nothing to fear against any opposition.
Updated: 09:37 Wednesday, October 09, 2002
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