Although both sides had opportunities to take the spoils, the 13-13 Yorkshire One draw between Malton and Norton and visitors Selby was the fairest outcome on the day.

Far too often both sides either spilled the ball or gave away needless penalties at crucial times.

Selby had to make late changes, with Shaun Austerfield still troubled with a niggling knee injury and last season's skipper, Jason Cicero, turning an ankle in training.

Andy Gabel switched to centre with Martin Protheroe coming off the bench to slot in on the wing. Kevin Lowery replaced Cicero in the second row, with Dave Christison and John Webster filling the vacant positions on the bench.

Malton were fortunate not to go behind in the opening minutes when a penalty attempt for a high and dangerous tackle was wide of the posts.

It was all Selby in the opening ten minutes and they took the lead with a try in the corner from hooker Shane Sellers, who had created the overlap after intelligent play by the Selby backs. Hamish Burns missed the conversion.

In the 24th minute, Hamish Burns had to leave the field with a badly cut head and took no further part in the game and was replaced by Webster for his first outing of the season.

Selby were awarded a penalty in front of the posts, which full back David Batty kicked to extend the lead to 8-0. Both sides lost a player to the sin bin just before the interval.

A break by fly half Chris Creber was carried on by Will Barber and Ryan Lonsdale, who forced his way through Selby's defence before passing back to Barber to race over for a try. Ian Cooke's conversion kick struck an upright and rebounded the wrong side.

Malton had a much brighter start to the second half.

A quckly taken penalty by Matt Miers was swiftly passed along the back line and Ian Cooke's try gave Malton the lead.

From the restart, Malton kept up the pressure and a good kick into Selby territory by Miers had the defence in a tangle.

The quickly recycled ball was impeded on its way to the backs by several Selby forwards, who were lingering in offside positions, and Cooke added the penalty to extend Malton's lead.

Defences on both sides appeared to be on top and Malton should have secured the points from that point on.

Selby's forwards were still knocking Malton back at the breakdowns and Malton seemed intent on playing the ball back to their forwards when a better option would have been to get it to the wings.

This gave Selby the opportunity to pressurise the Malton line on several occasions and they looked to have levelled the scores from a forward drive only to be denied because an over enthusiastic pack member had dived into an offside position.

However, back they came and another spell of constant pressure sucked in the home defence for the ball to again go wide, where Sellers was on hand to apply the finishing touch to level the score.

One final flourish from Malton almost saw Creber put Barber in for a winning score but the final pass again went astray and both sides had to settle for a draw.

Selby showed fight and commitment up front, which Malton generally contained.

Malton must get the ball wide, where their undoubted fitness will cause difficulties for many opponents.

Next week, Selby travel to Dinnington for an Intermediate Cup first round match.

Updated: 12:15 Monday, September 15, 2003