YORK Acorn finally ended their Normanton away jinx with an impressive display which maintained their surge for promotion from the National Conference League division two.

However, their excellent 21-14 victory over the Knights was tarnished somewhat by the news Acorn will be without influential stand-off Danny Liddell for the best part of three months due to a fractured cheek bone, while they also saw forward Lee McTigue sent off for apparently punching in the last tackle of the game.

The real action centred mostly around the playing side of the game and Acorn's young troops can be justifiably proud of their display which illustrated their ever increasing maturity as a team on the up.

Normanton took the lead on ten minutes with a penalty from stand-off Simon Hill to which Acorn full-back Andy Lee replied in kind on ten minutes.

Normanton retook the lead on 23 minutes when Hill created the space for winger Ian Moreby to stretch over in the corner, but five minutes later Acorn drew level when quick play by scrum-half Johnny Waldron saw second-rower Paul Payne storm over for a try.

Hooker Lee Frank added the extras to see Acorn move in front for the first time, 8-6.

Minutes later the York side were in even more buoyant mood when Danny Liddell sent dancing wizard Waldron into space and the teenage Acorn scrum-half put the burners on to blaze past a leaden-footed Normanton full-back on his way to his tenth try of the season.

Frank goaled the try to send Acorn in at the break 14-6 up and, with prop Paul Dodsworth giving a towering man-of-the-match display among the forward exchanges, they were confident of turning this interval lead into a match-winning scoreline.

Their optimism seemed well founded early in the second half when a 43rd-minute penalty by Frank and a 55th-minute field goal by Andy Lee saw the visitors stretch their lead to 17-6.

Alas, Acorn were again guilty of letting their foot slip of the pedal and Normanton took full advantage to get the nerves jangling in both camps.

Two unconverted tries by winger Kev Bateman and centre Lee Maskill, the latter off a dubious forward pass, saw the Acorn lead cut to three points with nearly a quarter still to play.

The decisive score did not come until the 78th minute when a dropped ball near the Normanton line was snapped up quickly by substitute Stephen Waldron who squeezed in at the corner to secure a very important win.

Updated: 12:05 Monday, December 10, 2001