HEWORTH A' ARFLC sent local rivals York Groves crashing from the York and District Cup after an entertaining 22-4 semi-final victory at York Acorn's Thanet Road ground.

Both teams tested each other in the early stages with fine tackling, but Heworth drew first blood after ten minutes when an astute kick by Gary Watkinson on the last tackle saw centre Kenny Embleton on hand to touch down in the corner.

Fifteen minutes later, Heworth doubled their advantage to 8-0 when a great pass from Craig Griffiths enabled young winger Paul Smith to race over in the corner.

Groves were playing some attractive rugby and looked dangerous on the break at this stage and were duly rewarded after 35 minutes with a fine solo try from Dean Kilbride on 35 minutes.

Picking the ball up from around 30 yards and nothing seemingly on, Kilbride ran at the defence and a few sidesteps later found the try line in his grasp to give Groves a foothold in the match and take the game to 8-4 at the interval.

Groves simply weren't in it in the second half though and it belonged to Heworth, who managed to run in a further three tries without reply.

Paul Gill found a chink in the Groves defence to crash over after 55 minutes and man-of-the-match Chris Varley showed his skill to cross over for Heworth's fourth try.

Sean Holmes rounded off the victory with the try of the game - racing 60 metres to score under the posts for Watkinson to goal.