Malton and Norton kept up the pressure on the North Two leaders with an emphatic 23-9 victory at Redcar.

The tenacity of the Malton pack kept them encamped in their hosts territory for much of the opening period.

From broken play just inside the home 22 metre area fly-half Rob Tate, standing in for injured skipper Chris Creber, carved his way through the defence before handing on to Andy Mitchell, who stormed over.

Ian Cooke converted and within five minutes the lead was extended when centre Ryan Lonsdale made a typical burst through the Redcar ranks to set up good second phase possession for Mitchell to cross again.

A brief home revival produced a penalty for Redcar before Cooke added a similar effort for Malton.

The match was always on the point of boiling over and the lid blew off when Malton flanker Craig Foote and a Redcar prop were shown red cards following a skirmish.

While all around him were losing their cool Tate remained composed and assured. Sensible use of his boot kept Redcar on the back foot as time after time he turned them with astute kicks to the corners.

However, it was the hosts who opened the scoring for the second period with a penalty before Cooke added another for Malton. Redcar again hit back with another penalty when Malton No 8 forward James McKay was sin binned for persistently offending at rucks.

But a sweeping move took play deep into home territory. From a set scrum Tate executed a perfect training ground move for Cooke to scythe through to put his side out of reach.

Updated: 11:34 Monday, October 25, 2004