Underdogs beat complacent Malton side (From Gazette & Herald)

Underdogs beat complacent Malton side

Skipton 27, Malton & Norton 20; A very disappointing Malton were given a lesson in commitment and endeavour by a side currently four leagues below them.

Just how a side can slip so far after giving such a good account of themselves the previous week is bewildering and calls for some players to question their commitment. There were exceptions in Ian Cooke, Carl Muscroft, Andy Newsome and Phil Ryan, but the good were far outweighed by the poor.

Malton opened brightly enough and should have capitalised in the first two minutes when they produced their best rugby of the game. However, failure to convert pressure into points let them down.

Skipton broke free and set up a 10-point lead from a converted try and penalty. Malton threatened with a good move started by Newsome and carried on by Chris Creber, who then fed Cooke to carved through the defence before returning to Creber who touched down.

Again Malton fell back into their shell and appeared quite happy to just go through the motions as the hosts fought back tenaciously to score a further two well-deserved tries before the interval.

With a 17-point deficit, Malton had a mountain to climb if they were to save the embarrassment of a shock defeat.

Flu sufferer Liam Vaughan was introduced for the second period and, despite his poor health, brought more vigour to the Malton effort. However, for much of the time he was alone as his team mates, although slightly improved, continued to frustrate the travelling group of spectators.

The gap was narrowed firstly when Tom Stephenson crossed following a threequarter movement and secondly when David Webster dummied his way over.

Once again they went back into their shell as Skipton regained the initiative with their fourth deserved try.

In the final minutes Malton did show a little more spirit and second row forward Chris Robson crashed over for his sides' fourth try. However, it was far too little too late and Malton have been unceremoniously dumped out of The Yorkshire Shield by a side who started the day with the intention of limiting the damage they expected to sustain but ended as fully deserved winners.

Updated: 14:29 Wednesday, January 19, 2005