TWELVE-TRY Malton RUFC kept up their Durham and Northumberland One title charge with a 74-5 demolition of North Shields.

Malt never looked after the opening minute when centre Ryan Lonsdale put Karl Shaw over for the opening try converted by Ben Hough.

Flanker David Cooke, back to his barnstorming best after injury, opened up the defence with a strong run which was carried on by Lonsdale who handed on to skipper Chris Creber who sliced through the second line of defence to put Ian Cooke over in the corner.

From a scrum 40 metres out Creber again wrought havoc in the defence to send Lonsdale over for Hough to convert. Shortly afterwards Malton lost second row forward Duncan Foster to the sin bin for ten minutes for a technical offence and North Shields took full advantage to score a pushover try by No 8 Steve Hanson.

That was to be the last the visitors saw of the ball for the rest of the afternoon as Malt switched into top gear.

From halfway Ian Cooke started a move involving David Webster, Lonsdale and Creber to set up prop forward James Machin who, for the second week running, showed a great turn of pace to score. Hough converted to give Malton a 26-5 lead at half-time.

Malton rested Hough, to save his energy for a Yorkshire Under-20 fixture yesterday, moving Ian Cooke to full-back and bringing Liam Cowton onto the wing.

Malton kept up the relentless pressure and scores came at regular intervals with Shaw scoring twice more ton complete his hat-trick.

Other tries came from, Lonsdale (2), Cowton (2) and Ian Cooke with Lonsdale's first being the best of the match - a sweeping move which went the full width of the pitch.

Updated: 11:19 Monday, January 30, 2006