Moorends-Thorne Marauders continued their march towards the Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire minor championship with an outstanding win away at second placed Lincoln City Knights.

The Marauders opened the scoring on 8 minutes after excellent forward work from Gaz Everton and Gavin Millward sucked the Knights defence in with powerful driving; the ball was shipped wide for Adam Pickles to go over in the corner for the opening try, converted by Ryan Rafferty.

Craig Mills extended the Marauders lead with an unconverted try 4 minutes later, the ball again going through several pairs of hands before great foot work by Mills saw him stepping inside the Knights cover defence on the way to the try line.

Lincoln pulled a well worked try back on 14 minutes with Graham Cass getting on the end of a short ball which split the Marauders defence.

Moorends took control of the last 20 minutes of the first half with the next score coming from Chris Allen who combined with Tom Brandham, Mark Roach and Greg Mills before showing great foot work to ghost in at the corner.

Graham Cass again pulled a try back for the home side, going over for an identical try to his first, this time Pearson converted.

With only a 4-point cushion to show for all their possession, the Marauders stepped up to another level, a Ryan Rafferty penalty for holding down 4-16, signalled the start of a mini try burst; Ben Hoffman, Steve Allen and Roger McClean had the Knights defence going backwards, this allowed Ryan Rafferty to jump from acting half, stepping and dancing his way through, drawing the full-back he calmly sent Alex Palmer under the posts, Rafferty converted.

Chris Allen again displayed his skills and footwork, the Marauders moved the ball to the left and Allen latched onto the ball out wide before slicing through the defence to the try line 10-26 at half-time.

Moorends hammered home their superiority in the second half with a very clinical attacking and defensive display of rugby league.