MALTON & Norton served up a victory on the club’s annual Ladies Day, overcoming Dronfield 20-3 at The Gannock.

Player availability gave Malton the chance to blood two more of their Colts team, including Henry Cornforth, Oli Owuor and Loughborough student Dylan Jones in their squad. 

The hosts kicked off with the sun on their backs, and it wasn’t long before Jones demonstrated the strength of his kicking out of hand to put pressure on the Dronfield defence. 

However, a simple knock on spoilt the first chance of points for a Malton side with intentions of bringing themselves onto the scoreboard early on.

Dronfield came out on top of the first kick-tennis duel with a net gain of 20 metres, and bar the exception of a scrum in which the hosts dominated, the sides appeared to be relatively evenly-matched.

And in the 10th minute Cornforth showed why he was given his chance when with his first run, ball in hand, he made 10 hard metres.

Malton were adjudged to have been held up a minute later, but Paul Angus brought them onto the scoreboard from the next scrum, dummying and skipping his way across the whitewash for the first seven points of the afternoon.

The visitors threatened to cut that advantage five minutes later, but could not convert what seemed a simple shot in front of the posts.

Despite plenty of possession, Malton lacked the necessary penetration, and making a break proved difficult against a solid visiting back division.

However in the 25th minute pragmatism was the order of the day and a penalty awarded 30 metres out to the left of the posts was calmly slotted by Shane Poole to take them into double figures.

Dronfield made no mistake from their second kick at goal less than a minute later, though that proved to be the visiting kicker’s last contribution of the afternoon due to injury.

With half time beckoning, a clever chip and collect by Jones put Malton in the visitors’ red zone, but having opted for a scrum penalty instead of a drive for the line, the home eight was held up, with the visitors instead clearing their lines from the resulting five-metre scrum.

The hosts though did extend their advantage 10 minutes after the break, winning two scrums before moving the ball to Blair Foster, who cut inside before scoring next to the uprights.

Malton then completed the scoring in the 65th minute, with the decision taken to convert a penalty 25 metres out as perhaps the only sure fire method of getting the ball over the line.

Dronfield's afternoon ended on a sour note as they saw themselves close out the game with 14 men after their prop was shown a yellow card for backchat in the dying minutes, with Malton having done more than enough for victory.

An enticing trip to West Yorkshire awaits for Malton as they visit the hillside ground at Old Brodleians next weekend.