YORK RUFC should keep up the pressure at the top of Durham and Northumberland One with an easy win at Ashington on Saturday.

Fresh from their five-try mauling of promotion rivals Consett at Clifton Park last week, the South East Northumberland side should prove no match for captain Andy Kay and his men.

With just one win from their 14 league matches, Ashington will surely just be looking to keep the score respectable against a side who must continue to win to keep pace with rivals Durham City and Northern.

With the 'points for' column looking more and more crucial as the campaign goes on, York will be looking to turn on the style against a team which has conceded 640 points and has the league's weakest defence.

But they will be without try-scoring hero Rob Kama who, being unable to travel, will play for the seconds at Clifton Park.

Kama, who scored a brace of tries during last week's win, will be replaced by colt Mark McDaid who has impressed club coaches when coming off the bench.

The only change in the forwards is the return of Grant Williams who replaces Darren Rotherford in the second row.

On the replacement bench, Simon Cunningham takes over as front row cover from Nick Hare.

With lowly West Hartlepool TDSOB next up in the league ladder, York need to accumulate points before make-or-break matches against Northern and Durham City towards the end of the campaign.

Malton and Norton will hope they can avoid another cold front against Redcar as they look to get back to winning ways in North 2 East.

A trip to Teesside to face Stockton last weekend was postponed because of the big freeze and the players will be itching to put right their 27-20 loss to Skipton a fortnight ago with a handsome win.

With seven wins and six defeats so far, it's been a topsy-turvy year for the county club, but anything less than a victory against Redcar at The Gannock could see them spiralling towards the lower reaches of the league.

While Malton were not in action last week, Redcar recorded a home win over Alnwick and should be in good heart for tomorrow's clash.

Neither James McKay or Phil Ryan are available for Malton and Craig Foote fills the No 8 spot with Carl Muscroft, unavailable last week, coming back into the front row.

Scrum half Andy Newsome is also unavailable but Malton have a ready-made replacement in older brother Jon, who will bring his vast experience to the side.

Updated: 11:07 Friday, January 28, 2005