JON NEWTON scored twice as Old Malton St Mary’s maintained their title tilt in the York Minster Engineering League premier division with a 5-0 rout of Tadcaster Albion Reserves.

The fixture passed a late pitch inspection and, although the heavy conditions put paid to a repeat of last week’s flowing football, which brought a 9-0 thrashing of Poppleton, St Mary’s continued their goal-happy form to stay in touch with the top two.

They were even missing a handful of key players, and will host fourth-placed Huntington Rovers on Saturday in good heart, confident of turning games in hand into more valuable points. St Mary’s soon had Taddy on the back foot and were two goals up inside 15 minutes.

Newton brought out a stunning save when he powered a header from Eddie Cass’s excellent cross on 10 minutes, before Jamie Shepherd and Dean Nuttall tore down the left where the latter delivered a superb cross for Newton to side-foot home.

Nuttall’s pace then proved too much for the defence when he ran away on 15 minutes, only to be clipped from behind in the penalty box.

Stand-in captain Simon Cooke kept up his unblemished spot-kick record by sending the ’keeper the wrong way.

In between times, St Mary’s goalkeeper Andy Slaughter let a speculative cross squirm through his hands, but a brilliant recovery saw him drag the ball off the line.

The quality of the game, along with the conditions, deteriorated leaving the scoreline unchanged until early in the second half.

A glorious chance went begging when Scott Preston and Newton put the ball on a plate for Stuart Dickens, who chipped the goalkeeper only to see the effort go wide. But then the move of the game involving five players ended with Newton bursting clear to fire home his second.

Rob Pinder replaced Newton with 30 minutes left and within a minute his side should have scored.

Preston won a 50-50 with the goalkeeper and kept his feet to move in on an unguarded goal, where he hit a post from an acute angle just inside the six-yard box. St Mary’s fourth goal nonetheless duly came, with 20 minutes left.

A superb cross-field ball by Liam Preston saw Nuttall break clear to round the ’keeper.

Within two minutes, Nuttall delivered a deep cross to Pinder, who rifled home a stunning left-footed volley to seal the win in style.

Two late goals kept alive Malton & Norton’s promotion hopes in division one as they maintained their decent run with a 3-2 win at bottom club Thorpe United.

M&N managers Stu Collins and Nicky Cass fielded the same side that had seen off Pocklington Town 3-0 last week and it seemed to pay off as Liam Burdett opened the scoring in an open game.

However, lacklustre defending played a part as Thorpe edged ahead through two Dean Woods goals.

M&N had to make changes – old stagers Paul Boyes, Brian Howe and Andrew Thornton were introduced – and they threw caution to the wind to get back in the game.

Marcus Godsell, who impressed alongside Conner Shipley, found the equaliser late on and then, in the last minute, Boyes fired home the winning goal.

Collins and Cass were not happy with the display but it was a sixth win in seven league games for fifth-placed M&N, who go to York to take on fourth-placed St Clement’s next week.

Unbeaten Amotherby & Swinton and leaders Terrington Glory had no game in division two, but the latter were in action, in a thrilling York FA Saturday Junior Cup round four tie which went the distance.

They were up against league rivals Church Fenton White Horse and won 4-3 on penalties after the game had finished 2-2.

Amotherby & Swinton Reserves enjoyed a 7-0 win at Thorpe ‘A’ in reserve ‘B’, Richard Cass leading the way with five goals, with Andrew Phillips getting the other two.

Old Malton Reserves lost 2-1 at York St John ‘A’ in reserve ‘A’, while Malton & Norton Reserves drew 1-1 with Tockwith in reserve ‘C’.