YORK RI made it five wins out of the last six with a workmanlike Yorkshire Three victory over Moortown on Saturday.

With a good victory over Castleford the previous week Moortown were looking forward to climbing the table but found an RI side in no mood to give way.

RI started at a cracking pace and opened the scoring after only five minutes when, from a flowing move that started deep in RI territory, centre Tim Nash exploited a gap in the home defence to score.

The visitors could have gone further ahead but first Allott and then Bloom were held short of the line. However, RI were not to be stopped, although full-back Allott was held up after entering the line at pace there was enough support for the ball to be smuggled out to Nick Humphries to score.

Moortown reduced the arrears on the half hour mark when Simon Pogson kicked the first of his two penalties after Morse was sin-binned for killing the ball.

RI continued to take the game to Moortown but resolute defending by the home side halted all RI's efforts.

Scrum-half Nick Ward just failed to touch down before the ball ran over the dead-ball line but he was rewarded with ten minutes to go when, from a scrum near the Moortown line, RI's pack heaved Moortown back over their line for Ward to dive through touch down to put RI 17-6 ahead and a victory that will help lift them out of the relegation area.

Updated: 13:02 Monday, January 27, 2003