NEW Earswick All Blacks' battle for the Pennine League division two title is likely to go down to the wire after they and second-placed Kippax Welfare both won.

Man of the match Ben Jones scored four tries as leaders All Blacks overcame an under-par first half performance to hammer Ovenden 'A' 44-0. But Kippax stayed level on points at the top, albeit having played a game more, with a 54-35 win at Liversedge.

Third-placed Newsome, who were not in action this weekend, are also in the promotion reckoning two points further back with two games to go. The top three each face teams in the bottom four next week.

All Blacks went ahead against lowly Ovenden when Chris Judge sent winger Andy Fletcher over on eight minutes, James Sanderson booting the first of his six goals.

But the York side made too many basic errors thereafter and it wasn't until four minutes before half-time that they scored again, Mark Green and Judge combining to give scrum-half Jones his first try.

All Blacks introduced two 17-year-old first-team debutants after the interval -- Dean Smith and Liam Gargan both being highly impressive, with the former being denied a 40-yard try as he was caught in the corner -- and the team as a whole raised their game to score six tries.

Jamie Daniel took four tacklers over the line, then Judge raced clear to send Jones over again before the scrum-half dummied over for his hat-trick try.

Jones pounced on a Judge kick for his fourth before Green sent Jamie Rhodes through. The Ovenden full-back was sent off late on for elbowing Green in a tackle before Jo Jo Hnesh rounded off the try-scoring.

Heworth 'A' have just missed out on a top-four play-off place in the final CMS Yorkshire League division three standings.

The final placings were recalculated as some teams failed to complete fixtures and so certain results had to be struck off, and after all the maths was completed, Heworth finished fifth.

Updated: 10:05 Tuesday, April 19, 2005