MALTON & Norton RUFC’s hopes of an immediate return to North One East were dashed as they lost their North play-off tie 14-11 at Morpeth.

The visitors, who finished second in Yorkshire One, trailed 11-6 at the break and had several opportunities to win the match, but Morpeth held firm.

The Malton pack opened in storming mood and Morpeth conceded two penalties as they struggled to hold their foes, but Ian Cooke’s first effort rebounded to safety from a post and a second sailed past the posts.

Morpeth were quick to take advantage and, from a scrum, the ball was sent wide and an overlap resulted in a try in the corner.

Malton again put together some excellent moves to pressurise the Morpeth line and again the penalties came as the home side desperately defended their line.

This time Cooke made no mistake and converted two efforts in a short space of time to give his side a 6-5 lead.

On the half hour mark, in one of their few sorties into Malton’s half, Morpeth struck again with a penalty to retake the lead, but then had a front row forward sin-binned for persistent offending at the breakdown.

Unfortunately, Malt were unable to capitalise and Morpeth went further ahead with a penalty on half-time when Malton entered a maul from the side.

Straight from the restart Malton were on the offensive. Good forward play took them into scoring territory and they crossed the line but hooker Jim Thornton was denied a score against his former team when the referee adjudged he was held up over the line.

At the resultant scrum, Malton edged forward and scrum-half Paul Angus picked up and darted over to get the touch down to level the scores.

The conversion failed and the scores were locked for a long period of time as Malton battled to get the vital score.

That appeared to have come when a good run from wing Tom Newitt took play into the corner. A forward drive again got them over the line, but again they were deemed to have been held up without grounding the ball.

At the midway point of the half, Morpeth struck. Having worked their way into the Malton half, they were awarded a penalty which was converted to give the lead 14-11.

Malton pressed again and squandered a two-man overlap when a try seemed a certainty.

For the final 15 minutes, Malton were camped in the Morpeth half, but they were unable to break through.