But Malton did themselves no favours as they found themselves 19 points down within 15 minutes of the start, leaving them with far too much work to do to recover.

West Park received the kick-off and immediately attacked the Malton defence. A mazy run by the home threequarters (Jason Whitehead), assisted by some missed tackles by Malton, resulted in a try under the posts before the Gannock side had even got their bearings.

From the restart Malton attempted to outwit the home side by kicking away from the forwards.

The tactic was fraught with danger as West Park gathered and again ran half the length of the field to score with less than five minutes on the clock. Again the conversion was successful and Malton had a mountain to climb.

The task became even greater when after 15 minutes West Park took their own ball at a lineout and a rolling maul saw them trundle over the Malton line for an unconverted score.

From that point on Malton came much more into the game and enjoyed territorial advantage for much of the remainder of the half.

Good line kicking from Chris Creber and Will Barber ensured that West Park were kept on the back foot.

Indeed, some degree of frustration seemed to appear in the West Park ranks as they were constantly penalised for killing the ball and on another day Malt could well have been awarded a penalty try on more than one occasion.

However, despite Malton's pressure the league's meanest defence refused to yield and the half-time score remained 19-0 in favour of the home side.

With the slight slope in their favour Malt kept up the pressure in the second half and again caused concern in the home side, resulting in the sin-binning of a prop forward for stamping on a Malton player when a red card would have been the deserved punishment. (I didn't stamp, I was trying to get him off my shoe - Shep)

Much as they tried the young Malton side could not find a way of opening the experienced home defence, many of who have played at a much higher level in West Park's balmier days.

Malton were then reduced to 14 men with a sin-binning and West Park took full advantage.

From a scrum close to the line, Park heaved the Malton pack backwards to score an unconverted push over try.

A penalty late in the game sealed the score for the home side who were deserved winners.

The setback will affect the spirits of the side as they will have learned from this experience. But they will look forward to taking that experience forward to the upcoming game at Wensleydale on Saturday and the following week's league game at home to Skipton.