YORK City have extended Jon Maloney's loan stay at KitKat Crescent by a futher month.

The Doncaster Rovers centre back has forged a solid defensive partnership with Paul Groves since joining the Minstermen at the start of the year.

Maloney's one-month loan expires this week but Belle Vue boss Dave Penney has agreed to an extension of that period.

While the 18-year-old has been on the pitch, City's opposition have failed to score in three of the club's last four Conference matches.

Scarborough only managed two late goals after Maloney (pictured right) was substituted on his debut and the Wetherby-born teenager has also been influential in the back-to-back league shut outs against Morecambe and Leigh RMI.

He did play the full 90 minutes when Viv Busby's men drew 2-2 at Stevenage but, in that match, made a contribution at the other end with the opening goal.

Busby is delighted to have acquired Maloney's services for a longer period and said: "I've been very pleased with Jon and we have got him for another month.

"He's been really steady for us, reads the game well, puts his foot in and his performances have been very consistent.

"Dave knows it's great experience for him playing at this level of football. It's better than playing for Donny reserves and it's working well for both parties."

While Maloney continues to impress at the back for City, striker Andy Bishop is also earning the plaudits in attack.

Bishop bagged a brace in Saturday's 3-0 win at Leigh RMI to take his tally to nine for the season and also set up Lee Nogan for the other goal.

Busby praised the 22-year-old striker for recovering from a poor miss to spearhead a strong second-half display and also admitted he was happy for Bishop to continue defying training ground tactics by taking free-kicks after he curled City in front from a 20-yard set piece.

City's caretaker boss said: "Bish had a great chance to score but it bobbled up in front of him and went over the bar. He was three yards out but I missed from closer that that as a forward and, as soon as he missed that chance, I told him to keep missing because I don't want players to be afraid of missing.

"He could have had five goals because he missed two or three chances but he still got two. For the first goal, he's not supposed to be on free-kicks.

"At Stevenage I said 'What's he doing taking it?' and he hit the bar before we scored and, against Leigh, I said 'Get him off it' but he crashed it into the corner. Some people fancy it on the day and that's fine by me.

"He scored our third and set up the other one for Lee Nogan, who I was pleased for because he has worked hard for that."

City were reduced to ten men after Darren Dunning's 58th-minute sending off with the score still 0-0 but Busby pointed out that he was pleased with an improved second half performance.

He said: "The first half was pretty poor. I think we came here believing it would be a stroll.

"At half-time, I said we had to be 30 per cent better and told them the game was 100 times more important to the club than the Accrington cup game on Tuesday. They were all sharp and lively for that match and I think they were against Leigh in the second half.

"I thought everybody worked really hard when we went down to ten men and we scored three excellent goals."

On-loan Leeds United midfielder Rob Constable did not travel to Leigh after aggravating a foot injury picked up against Accrington in training on Friday.

Updated: 11:00 Monday, January 31, 2005