HAVING won four of their last five matches in Regional One North East, Ilkley’s director of rugby Rhys Morgan has admitted: “Don’t be looking at us to finish in the bottom two next season.”

The Dalesmen, who only led 9-5 at the interval, defeated Cleckheaton 36-5 at Stacks Field on Saturday to remain ninth, and Morgan said: “After a good win over Paviors, a good performance against Billingham and a great win against Cleckheaton people shouldn’t be looking at us to go down next season.

“We don’t look beyond the next Saturday or set goals but we are quite willing to push up the league a little bit this season if we can and set our stall out for next year and rebuild.

“We thought that we were in a good place at the end of last season but then we surprisingly lost two 10s, a winger and two scrum halves, and things got a little bit sticky.

“We lost Will Addyman injured early this season and Joe Lowes has been out too and all of a sudden you are putting on sticking plasters, but it was a good lesson to learn and we do not need to be complacent about next season.

“You have to evolve, otherwise you become extinct, and we are evolving.”

Ilkley were boosted against Cleckheaton by being able to use full back Ben Magee, who needed stitches in a head cut in the second half, and utility back Blake Morgan, who were on loan from Otley and not needed for their re-arranged National League Two North match at Huddersfield.

Morgan said: “It is at the discretion of Otley as to how long they both stay with us, but we are hoping that it is for the foreseeable, and who knows where that will lead to in the future?

“Only perhaps if there is an emergency will they be recalled, and that goes for centre Kieran Wilyman too, who is just getting better and better, so it is good to have the three of them, and two of them are ex-Ilkley boys anyway in Ben and Blake.

“One of the stipulations about Blake coming was that he gets some game-time at scrum half, which is tough on No 9 Archie Elgood to have to cover the wing, but Blake got 20-25 minutes at scrum half.

“Without them we might be thin on the ground.”

Ilkley only had that four-point lead at half-time, and Morgan said: “I was really pleased with the performance overall as Cleck are a great scrummaging team who never take a backward step, and we had done a load of work in the week prior to the game on scrummaging.

“Also we have worked tirelessly over the past four or five weeks on our maul defence and maul attack and on our line-outs and it was a pleasure to see us get that scrum penalty and I was jumping up and down on the sidelines like an idiot!”

Morgan said of the first half: “Sometimes we just need to be more patient. We were on our way to the line and threw two or three passes, and as Jimmy (Lowes) said at half-time if we had just held them instead of off-loading and gone through one more ruck we would have scored on the next phase.

“Off-loads are fantastic, but if it is not on it is not on.

“We got about six or seven penalties on the trot but then gave five away, some of which were needless and they have been told off, but it was great to get that score early in the second half from Ben Walker. I don't care that we didn’t get a four-try bonus point, but we kept the scoreboard ticking over, which was the right thing to do.”