Birkenshaw served notice on their championship-chasing rivals that they are the team to beat when they subjected amateur RL Premier Division leaders Siddal to a 36-4 mauling at East Bierley.

Birky have trimmed Siddal's lead at the top to five points and with four games in hand are now masters of their own destiny on the title run-in.

It was the power play of second row forward Martin Poutney which provided the springboard for success and two of his breaks led to tries for pack partner Paul Bancroft and stand off Dave Turpin.

Centre Mark Holden finished of a classic crossfield passing move which together with two Matt Gowland conversions put Birky 16-0 in front at the interval.

It was more of the same on the restart when centre Richard 'Big Bird' Cousins bagged a beauty from a smart Turpin pass and the lively half back then showed a clean pair of heels to notch his second.

Full back Morton Robinson finished off a good afternoon's work with a try under the posts to put the visitors out of their misery.

Queensbury were bang out of sorts losing 24-6 on their visit to Elland. A catalogue of uncharacteristic mistakes saw Basil Richard's boys trail 14-0 at the break. Scrum half Carl Smith scored a try and a conversion to provide a glimmer of hope but solid Elland defensive work made sure of the spoils.

In Division One, Clayton suffered an early injury to hooker Chris Parkinson before crashing to a 25-16 defeat at Emley Moor.

The hosts exploited the Villagers' flimsy cover defence to score three tries from speculative kicks but Clayton refused to be overawed and posted tries from Danny Murgatroyd (2) and Craig Pickthall plus two conversions from Mark Schofield to figure briefly in the hunt.

Richard Wood was outstanding for Clayton but superior numbers proved too much to overcome.

Wyke A won the Division Six derby

58-10 at Clayton.

Prop forward Craig Scott posted a hat-trick in the eleven-try romp. Aaron Priestley (2), Darren Barraclough (2), Glenn Scott, Tony Godfrey, Paul Coates and Graham Flynn joined him on the scoreboard.

Keighley Albion narrowly failed in their bid to reach the semi-final of the Pennine Cup for the first time in their history, losing 20-18 to Premier Division side St Josephs.