YORK RUFC Ladies went top of the NC North Two East after beating Hull Ionians 43-17 to follow up their opening-day draw at second-placed Driffield.

The Clifton Park outfit have been mixing league matches with development games, with last week's encouraging fixture boosting York for the trip to Hull.

There was a new centre partnership of Alex Johnston and Robyn Davies for the visitors and there were first-team starts for prop Fiona Piercy and back-rower Elizabeth Pyle.

Number eight Jess Hall got York going with a 20th-minute score under the posts and the excellent Ellie Seagrave went on to bag a first-half hat-trick of tries to make it 24-0.

The second half saw tries from Seagrave again, Davies and Claudia Francesca, with Ruth Whitehead adding two conversions.