Malton & Norton crushed West Hartlepool, a side who only five years ago were in the Zurich Premiership, 31-8 at The Gannock.

With two North East Two wins under their belts, Malton have made a fine start to higher-grade rugby.

James McKay and his back row partners were magnificent throughout.

McKay broke away before feeding left wing Ian Cooke, who crossed for the opening try which he converted himself.

Cooke added a penalty before West responded with two penalties from former Premiership scrum-half Dave Tighe.

After that Malton took control. Fly-half Chris Creber broke for George Mosey to send Jason Simpson in at the corner. Cooke added a penalty to make it 18-6 at the interval.

From a scrum in midfield McKay picked up and broke right before passing on to Creber, who returned the compliment for McKay to touch down.

West lost their composure and two of their players and one from Malton were sin-binned. When normal service was resumed McKay broke from a five-metre scrum for his second try.

Another Cooke penalty sealed victory for Malton, who have yet to concede a try in their opening two games.

Man of the match Andy Mitchell was withdrawn after an hour and replaced by the marauding David Cooke.

Updated: 12:33 Monday, September 13, 2004