Ilkley go into their three-week break sitting pretty at the top of SSE Yorkshire Division One.

But head of rugby Rhys Morgan is too wise an owl to count his chickens in terms of promotion.

He said: “We may be four points clear at the top, and some people are saying ‘are you preparing for life in North One East?’.

“But I am more of a glass half-empty sort of a person. You only have to remember what happened to Driffield two seasons go when Keighley were promoted.”

Ilkley made it 11 wins out of 14 league matches last weekend with a 24-0 home victory over Wath, but the result was in the balance for much of the game.

Morgan said: “I was worried just before half-time as we had been penalised nine times but we managed to get a try.

“The windy conditions made handling difficult. When we were playing with the wind it was blowing passes away from us but when you are against it, it blows the passes into your body.

“We had to be patient to get the four-try bonus point. I never thought it was going to come, but it did in the 80th minute.

“And with Doncaster Phoenix slipping up at Selby, that puts us four points clear but we still have some difficult games to come, such as York at home and Dinnington and Doncaster Phoenix away.

“York have been hit with injuries like us, and we have had six or seven injuries to our centres.

“But we also knew we would lose one or two matches because we were changing our structure, and now we have come to terms with what we want.

"We can take on the teams that want to throw the ball wide but we can also face teams who want to keep it tight.”