A SETTLED side is helping York RUFC climb the Yorkshire One table, reckons head coach Lee Denham.

The Clifton Parkers entertain bottom-of-the-table West Park Leeds having enjoyed their third win in a row last time out when beating Heath 15-13.

It is the best run Denham has overseen since his arrival in the Shipton Road hot-seat in the summer, and he has attributed it to not having to continually chop and change his starting XV.

"It is all settling down a little bit," he said. "It is amazing what happens you can actually put out a very similar side week in and week out - rather than having to change front rows all the time and have different back row combinations every week.

"It is quite nice to be able to select a very stable pack and our backs have been quite stable for a while now. It's about getting the ball to them. That has been the issue."

With West Park Leeds having won just twice all season, it looks like a five point haul in the making for York but the visitors surprised previously high-flying Hullensians 19-18 in their previous game and Denham is wary of taking them lightly.

"We need to," he added when asked if it was a game York should win. "We have talked about turning the corner. We should be putting teams like West Park Leeds to bed. They had a really good win last Saturday, though, and we will not be taking them for granted."

York remain without Marc Benson while Ed Proctor is also unavailable. Denham is hopeful he may be able to call on Darren Rutherford but must wait for the results of a tribunal following the prop's contentious red card at Bradford Salem.

The head coach said: "Our bench could be a bit light but it gives our second team players a chance to get into the first team and that's what we are there for. It is not just to win, we have to develop our players coming through."

Denham is also hoping his team can finish with 15 men following a rash of red card and sin-binnings in recent weeks, the latest being prop Will Norris' dismissal against Heath.

He added: "We have been managing ourselves well whereas, in the past, when we have lost a player on the park it has really hurt us.

"The guys are understanding that if they lose someone they have to dig in and try and keep it going. The red didn't help last Saturday. There was only five or six minutes left but we would have had a problem if there had been any scrummages.

"We were able to go on without putting a new front row on and we were quite lucky."