Malton and Norton rediscovered their best form to move into second place in Yorkshire Two with an excellent win 15-0 win over Skipton.

Early pressure from Malton failed to produce the expected try, but the boot of Ian Cooke came up trumps to open the scoring after five minutes with a good penalty.

The Malton pack were in superb form, providing high quality possession for the backs to cause their own problems for Skipton.

A number of drives to the line by the Malton pack were well held by the defence, but scrum-half Jon Newsome spun the ball wide for winger Neil Gilbertson to score.

Malton had the elements at their backs for the second period and kept up the pace remarkably well as the ground became heavier as the afternoon wore on.

But the back row of David Cooke, Andy Mitchell and James McKay were revelling in the conditions and were proving far too big a force for Skipton to handle.

Richard Webster and Duncan Foster were ruling the line outs as Malton dominated possession.

From a ruck close to the line prop Rich Ellis picked up, sold a dummy and strolled over to increase the lead. Cooke converted with another fine effort from wide out.

Skipton rallied briefly through some good drives from the pack but the Malton defence was in a mean mood and they kept the score blank.

An under-strength Pocklington side gave an excellent performance at Ilkley where the 31-15 losing scoreline does them no justice.

Pocklington were without half a dozen key players due to injury and unavailability and they left a dry and sunny Pocklington to find Ilkley rainswept and waterlogged.

Worse was to follow as fly-half Ed Townend was carried off as he injured his knee in the first tackle, then before Pock could reorganise Ilkley broke for a converted try.

Mark Taylor moved to number ten, only to react when he was late tackled and was promptly sin-binned.

Andy Kirby, only in attendance to substitute in an emergency, found himself on the field in the key fly-half position after only five minutes.

When Taylor returned though his first action was to dummy, hand off and cut inside to the posts from 30 yards before adding the conversion and then a penalty.

At the start of the second half as Ilkley scored a controversial converted try, but Pock stuck to their task and defended resolutely.

But when they wasted a couple of chances to get a foothold in Ilkley territory the home side took advantage with a spell of pressure which ended with a penalty and a try.

To add insult to injury, Taylor had to come off with a shoulder knock after trying to prevent the score.

Pock, though still down to 14 men responded superbly and Tim Bolton scored a good try

But to make matters worse, Ilkley dropped the ball short of the line and were able to slither on for a final score.

Updated: 11:19 Monday, March 10, 2003