Malton and Norton's cup spirit was in evidence again as they sent a Hull side who have recruited widely and expensively during the summer crashing out of the Junior Cup.

The Tetley Bitter Vase winners of last season won a nail-biting encounter 20-18 at The Gannock.

Hull were punished for their ill-discipline at times and Malton, playing a side two divisions above them, took full advantage to come from behind and snatch victory.

Visitors' fly half Gary Pearce opened the scoring after ten minutes with a penalty when Malton were caught offside at a ruck.

Malton struck back with a similar effort from the boot of Ian Cooke.

Play was exciting and swayed from end to end before Hull again took the lead when speedy winger Leroy McKenzie, the former York Wasps RL player, squeezed in at the corner for an unconverted try.

Malton regrouped and Cooke again reduced the deficit with another penalty before Hull again widened the gap with a try from right wing Ben Connelly which Pearce converted.

The Malton spirit then came to the fore and with Hull temporarily reduced to 14 players, having had a forward sin-binned, the home side increased the tempo and two further Cooke penalties brought them to within three points at the break.

After the interval Malton raised their game to another level and began to take control.

The pack were constantly driving the Hull eight backwards and stealing line out possession and the three-quarters showed invention and flair which their more illustrious opposition could not match.

Another Cooke penalty brought the scores level before Pearce restored his side's three point lead before leaving the fray with a leg injury.

With Malton now dominating every aspect of play the Hull discipline reached an all time low resulting in their tight head prop forward being dismissed for a kick at a Malton player. This caused further problems for the visitors as they were now being pushed off their own ball at every scrum.

The final glory came for Malton when they won clean possession at a line out to feed back row forward Phil Ryan, who had been a thorn in the Hull side all afternoon. From ten yards out the big Aussie crashed over in the corner to give Malt a slender lead which they held to the final whistle.

The game will rank as probably one of Malton's finest victories and the younger players of the past two seasons are now emerging.

One of them is Andy Mitchell, making his home debut, who played a big part in the important back row department.

Updated: 11:35 Monday, September 17, 2001