YORK Wasps Rugby League Club were today given the green light to play out the rest of the season.

The High Court this afternoon deferred the Inland Revenue's winding-up petition until August 9, giving the club 63 days to come up with a package to satisfy its creditors.

The Inland Revenue requested a compulsory winding-up order which was contested in court by former York vice-chairman Russell Greenfield.

He outlined ex-chairman John Stabler's intentions to take control of the club and asked to be given time to put together a package to save the Wasps.

After the hearing, a thrilled Mr Greenfield said: "It is fantastic news. It is more than we expected. We expected a three week deferment at the most but thought we would not get anything. We were told by a leading insolvency petitioner that it wasn't even worth contesting it. "

Greenfield's first step was to contact Stabler and chief executive Ann Garvey who had been waiting for the news.

He said there would need to be a lot of hard work over the next two months to ensure a successful outcome at the next hearing.

"We will work like hell to keep York going. We will be speaking to a lot of people and will hopefully get the backing of everyone.

"We don't want any rows with anybody about anything. We want everybody to work together to save the club. We have achieved the impossible so lets carry it forward."

York's remaining four matches of the season will continue as planned, starting on Sunday at Featherstone.

Had Greenfield failed to get a stay of execution the club, which owes £77,000 to the Inland Revenue and £46,000 to the City of York Council, would have folded.

The Rugby Football League council and board of directors have a meeting tomorrow when the club's plight may be discussed.

However, the RFL have restated that they are not in a position to come up with cash to bail York out.

They have been offering assistance and their club financial controller David Wood, who has since been made redundant in a shake-up of the RFL's administration. went through the club's books to assess their plight.

But RFL spokesman John Huxley said: "While we are very concerned about the future of York Rugby League Club we are not in a position to affect a rescue bid on behalf of them. It has to come from York themselves or it doesn't happen.

"We very much want York to survive because the people of York want their own club and it has a lot of tradition in the game. It would be an absolute tragedy for the professional game to lose York.

"But a club has to be responsible for its own debts."

However, if the club fails to meet it's financial obligations to the court Huxley said there could still be a route back into the league for York at a later date.

"Over the last few years we have proved that we are prepared to assist by providing advice and help to new clubs, as we did with Oldham, Doncaster, Gateshead and Bramley," he said.

"If a club goes out of existence and reapplies there is a route back in but the finance and initiatives have to come from the locality, not the Rugby League."

Huxley added that any club reapplying for league membership would have to meet the minimum standards, including proposals for development and marketing.