Dewsbury Rams were hardly silenced a year on from their 74-10 public slaughtering but they won't be heard on May 7 after York City Knights overcame their self-imposed hardships to book a place in the Northern Rail Cup quarter-final.

Phil Hasty was the perhaps unexpected saviour of the day. A man who - by his own admission - had not yet managed to find his feet among his new team-mates, took the game by the scruff of the neck and dragged it round in the Knights' favour.

It was his clever little chip over the Rams line on 36 minutes that sparked run chase number one as he, Craig Farrell and replacement loose forward Jonny Liddell charged towards the right corner at the empty mobile bar end.

Liddell juggled it into his arms then dived over the line, and Hasty duly obliged with the extras.

The cheers woke up the large chunks of crowd that had inadvertently been sent to the land of nod by the oh-so-dull first half.

Admittedly, trading set for set is safe, but anyone leaving at half-time would have had to be given a health warning if they planned to drive or operate heavy machinery.

The only points up to the 35th minute were the result of two Rams penalties as the two teams seemingly tried to bore each other to death in some kind of tactical chicken.

Ten minutes into the second half, a great offload by Jamie Bovill in his best game yet in a Knights shirt sent Hasty racing off towards the refreshments stand in the far corner to put the Knights six points up.

John Smith, Peter Fox and Farrell linked up to win the penalty that made it 12-4 from Hasty's boot - Farrell's hamstring visibly popping 15 metres en route to an eventual 30-metre gain.

And then, with the scores at 14-14 with two minutes left, it was Hasty who made good on his name as he sprinted on to what looked like a potentially painful inner thigh block of Liam Finn's drop goal attempt to run home.

His impish arm of triumph with 15 of the 65 metres remaining was a pre-arranged message to ex-Hull KR team-mate Watene - and an announcement to the Knights fans that this is what they'd been missing.

But Hasty's sainthood won't be in the post just yet after committing the cardinal sin of kicking straight into touch from the second half restart.

That was one of 14 unforced errors which put the Knights unnecessarily on the back foot 14 times.

The home side nearly sacrificed a scrum with head-and-feed on their own ten-metre line when the Rams used their heavy pack to compete for the ball on the hour mark.

The scrambled pass bounced enticingly into the in-goal but Danny Maun's dive was an inch too late.

Dewsbury did claw their way back in though as Darren Rogers took a forward-looking pass over in the 67th minute, and Finn caught out the York defence with a deft grubber that kindly deflected off the inside of a post for Jason Southwell.

But in among the mass of mistakes that made St George's historic act of dragon-slaying look easy, there were positives.

Communication stopped the high catch calamity of Halifax and the passing was more between waist and shoulder than below knee and above head.

New boy Jamaine Wray was a potent injection of dynamite to blow some life into the one-paced, one-dimensional first half with his rapid passing from acting-half shaking things up.

His introduction was greeted with the loudest cheer of the day and he lived up to it after three Rams could only slow him up before he created the kind of offload that props dream of to release centre Rob Spicer on a dynamic burst through the middle.

There was a late scare as Dewsbury threatened to send the tie to extra time but the York defence kept them out in the post-hooter chaos to book a long trip to Workington.

Knights: Lingard 7, Fox 6, Spicer 7, Law 6, Farrell 7, Ripley 6, Hasty 8, Bovill 7, Elston 7, O'Loughlin 7, Smith 6, Golden 6, Paterson 7 Subs (all used): Liddell 6, Wray, 7, Blanchard 6, Helme 7.

Tries: Liddell 36; Hasty 50, 79.

Conversions: Hasty 36; Ripley 79.

Penalties: Hasty 63, 69.

Drop-goals: None.

Sin-binned: None.

Sent off: None.

Rams: Tillotson, Rogers, Oakes, Maun, Mack, Bretherton, Finn, Watene, Chapman, Maloney, R Kelly, Jowitt, M Walker. Subs (all used): Greenwood, Murgatroyd, Southwell, J Walker.

Tries: Rogers 67, Southwell 75.

Conversions: Finn 75.

Penalties: Finn 18, 30.

Drop-goals: None.

Sin-binned: None.

Sent off: None.

Man of the match - Phil Hasty

Something seemed to click for the scrum-half as he got in first with the tackles and made them count, set up a try and crossed himself for the other two.

HT: 6-4.

Referee: Paul Carr (Castleford). Rating: Did his absolute best to confuse things with odd decisions all-round.

Attendance: 1,064.

Penalty count: 9-8.

Gamebreaker: Phil Hasty and Jason Golden charged down Liam Finn's attempted drop goal to set Hasty off on a game-winning run.

Moment of the match: Hatsy's cheeky raised hand in celebration with 15 yards to run.

Weather watch: Bright, sunny and warm. The gloves are finally off.

Match rating: Mind-numbingly dull first half opened out into a ding-dong finale.

Updated: 10:39 Monday, April 24, 2006