Heworth maintained their promotion push with a comprehensive 44-14 win over Widnes St Marie's.

With Milford Marlins winning at York Acorn (see report below) to move top, Heworth needed the points to stay in touch and they took them with a fine performance which proved they are right back to form.

Spokesman Ken Sykes said: "We had one bad spell towards the end of the first half when they scored three tries to get back into the game.

"But other than that we dominated and played some excellent rugby throughout. We scored eight tries and six goals so it was a pretty impressive win."

Player-coaches Brendan Carlyle and Phil Sturdy were impressive at hooker and scrum-half respectively, the former being the man of the match, while forwards Simon Harrison and Carl Barrow were also superb.

Tries came at regular intervals after Gavin Grant had given them an early lead when linking up from full-back and hitting the ball at pace to out-run the cover, with Carl Potter converting.

Steve Barnard then took a scoring inside pass from Potter, who converted the try and then crossed himself after a good passing movement involving Carlyle and Lee Clark.

On 28 minutes, Carl Barrow embarked on a 50-metre charge and the attack was finished off by Barnard, with Potter converting from wide out for a 22-0 lead.

Widnes then came back into the game with their trio of tries.

The first came from an overlap on the sixth tackle, Lee Campbell crossing, and the second came when some good handling saw Karl O'Doherty go over in the corner.

The third came on the stroke of half-time when the visitors' man of the match, Anthony Hollis, wrong-footed the defence and scored near the posts, with Darren Dickinson adding the extras to make it 22-14.

Whatever was said in the Heworth dressing room at the break did the trick as the hosts were back on song in the second half.

Three minutes in, and from a scrum 60 metres out, Potter booted forward with a set move that saw Grant win the race to the line, and two minutes later, Kenny Embleton scored from a pass by Nikki Wilson, Potter goaling both.

Heworth had to wait 20 minutes for their next score, which again saw Embleton on the receiving end of some good work by Wilson, with Barnard giving the scoring pass.

In the last minute Wilson turned from provider to scorer, finishing off a good move involving Sturdy, and Potter rounded off the excellent victory with the conversion.

Updated: 09:45 Monday, February 17, 2003