YORK RUFC continued their strong start to the Yorkshire One season with a 76-14 rout of Wheatley Hills, making it three wins out of three for the Clifton Park side.

The result keeps York flying high at the top of the table, joined by Scarborough on 15 points out of a possible 15, but with a far superior points-difference after scoring a whopping 168 in their three outings.

Among the scorers were Toby Atkin, who notched four tries, and Rob Hodges, who bagged a hat-trick on his full debut.

There were three other debutants on show - Steve Johnson, a recent acquisition from Hull Ionians who also has England Counties experience, young flanker Ross White, and Gareth Singleton, who has returned to the club from rugby league neighbours York Acorn and came on from the bench.

York scored first after eight minutes, with Chris Peace making good progress forward and Shane Goulding finishing off the move. Full-back John Dawes converted.

The visitors were dogged and able to spoil ball from an attacking York maul and scrum. But Ross White was tenacious as the defenders tried to rip the ball from him and York, as a team, retained possession and pressure. The attacking possession was eventually rewarded when, after a line-out and a ruck, Josh Parker – on for Lewis Hannibal at flanker – scored from 10 metres out. John Dawes converted and after 25 minutes York were 14-0 ahead.

Wheatley Hills had an efficient lineout and seemed to be playing well, but York displayed good organisation in defence, with captain Sam Forbes communicating well with his team.

And two tries followed in quick succession for a York side who were strong in possession - scored by Daz Rutherford and then Hodges, who finished off what was a good team effort to give the hosts their bonus point for the game. Dawes converted Rutherford’s touchdown.

Hodges scored his second just before half-time, followed quickly by Atkin’s first of the game. Allied to a Dawes conversion, York had a 38-0 lead going into the break.

After the restart, York were caught in possession trying to pass their way out of defence by Wheatley Hill’s Dave Laycock, who then converted his own try.

However, four more tries followed for York.

Firstly, Atkin picked the ball up from the base of a York scrum to run through to score, before Sam Forbes made a 60-metre run to set up Dawes for his first try of the match.

Parker made a 40-metre run to score his second, while Hodges rounded off his hat-trick with a run down the wing. Dawes added three of the four conversions.

In the final 10 minutes, Sam Kerry got a well-deserved try for the visitors, which Laycock converted, but Atkin scored his third and fourth tries of the game, combining well with winger George Davies for the latter, to cap off an impressive York performance.

One Dawes conversion from his two efforts brought the score up to 76-14.