North One East: Cleckheaton 45 West Hartlepool 14

IF Cleckheaton consider their pink and white hooped shirts to be lucky, they will have a while to wait before they can wear them again.

On a day when they were again raising money for the Breast Cancer Awareness charity, home full back James Wilson said: "The players can keep this set and we will use a fresh set next season."

Their seven-try romp, on an afternoon where the pitch was in good nick but the wind-chill factor made it seem much colder than the temperature gauge was showing, generally pleased injured player-coach Thiu Barnard.

He said: "We are pretty much safe now but we want to finish the season strongly.

"We want to win all of our four remaining matches and finish seventh but maybe sixth is a possibility as Bridlington are due to have some points deducted."

Their game at home to Malton & Norton this weekend was postponed because many of the hosts' players were away on a stag do on what was not originally a scheduled league Saturday.

Bridlington, who are nine points ahead of Cleck with two games in hand, will have sanctions imposed on them in accordance with RFU regulations, and the game will now be played on Saturday, April 28.

Barnard added: "What was pleasing was that many of the tries came from set moves, such as the one from the front of the line-out, but the game understandably became scrappy in the second half after we had scored 30 or 40 points."

On a day when the club's just giving page clocked up £3,140 for Breast Cancer Awareness, it was the visitors, who are in the highest of the three demotion berths, who started the brighter in an opening phase where both sides missed several tackles.

West's man of the match, winger Rob Thorn, made good ground down the right centre in the first minute and was well supported by prop Adam Coates as Cleck failed to tackle.

However, the hosts were even more clinical in their initial attack two minutes later when, from a line-out on the left, the ball was moved through the centre for Lee Queeley to score.

Mike Swetman missed the conversion, but was successful in the eighth minute when centre Matt Piper used a combination of strength and footwork to make the line as Cleckheaton sprinted into a 12-0 lead.

It seemed that the confidence of their victory the previous week, which was rated as their best display of the season, was still flowing through their veins, despite the Mini Beast from The East pouring 'cold water' on both team's aspirations.

Thorn again made a good incision in the tenth minute, but the visitors lost Coates to a head injury in the 17th minute, with referee David Downham (Central Yorkshire Society) being very quick to stop play so that the prop could receive treatment.

West Hartlepool's position worsened after 22 minutes when Swetman's offload, when he was falling backwards, put skipper Piper over for his second try, with Swetman's conversion making it 19-0.

Eight minutes later and the four-try bonus point was secure as hooker Ben Thrower danced his way over by the left-hand corner flag, with the strength of the wind being very apparent when Swetman's attempted conversion soon blew back towards the kicking tee.

The visitors gave themselves hope, however, when lock Jacob Ingham scored in the 34th minute, with fly half Zac Southern converting, aided by scrum half Matt Siddle, who was holding the ball upright until just before his half-back partner struck it.

But that brief window of opportunity was snuffed out in first-half injury time when Piper bagged his hat-trick try, with Swetman's conversion extending the lead to 31-7.

It was rekindled though three minutes into the second half when Thorn got a deserved try after he shrugged off fearless home scrum half Jack Bickerdike near the left-hand touchline.

West Hartlepool still needed to score the next two tries, however, but the opposite happened in a half that was punctuated by knock-ons as hands became colder and passes became too intricate for the conditions.

A beautiful one-handed offload by No 8 Jack Seddon put the supporting Wilson over for a try in the 47th minute, Swetman converting, and the latter twisted the knife a minute later when a loose ball obligingly popped up into his hands and he had the pace to make the line from centre-field, his conversion taking Cleckheaton's advantage to 45-14.

Little of note happened in the final 30 minutes, apart from the game Thorn having a try ruled out for a forward pass by Will Hilditch that the visitors later described as "aggressively lateral"!

By the time the players had emerged from the showers, pretty much everything outside was covered in a blanket of snow.