Bradford Salem 43, Goole 0

Bradford Salem’s first-choice hooker Dave Hutton has a torn hamstring.

But the Heaton-based club have a capable deputy in the meantime in electrician Simon Markey, who is 36 in December.

The experienced front-rower made his Salem debut when he was only 17 but three cruciate ligament operations later and a desire to organise the second team have meant that ‘Sparky’ hasn’t played regularly for the first team at Shay Lane since 2006-07.

However, he is a proud man and a battler, and said after this third victory of the season in four Yorkshire Division Two starts yesterday: “For the second week in a row we won all our own line-outs - but I know I am only filling in until Dave gets back.”

Markey, who also took a few against the head and was doubtless encouraged by a touchline shout of “You’ve got another three years left in you yet!”, was almost as effusive about his own team’s display after they ran in seven tries and prevented bottom-of-the-table Goole from scoring.

He said: “They were a scrappy team to play against but we defended well, although we tried to play too much rugby at times.

“But it was a generally good display as most of our back line were playing out of position, and it is always important to keep a clean sheet.

“It gives us confidence going into next week’s big match at Leodiensian.”

Salem, who have the best defence in the division, are third and Leos second and they have an identical playing record, only being separated by points difference, which Leos shade on plus 103 compared to Salem’s plus 91.

Markey, who has successfully revived the club’s junior section (they are running a combined under-seven and under-eight team, plus under-nines and under-tens), added: “There is no better set of forwards than ours in this division.

“We just need some of our injured backs to return, and the aim is to be playing in Yorkshire One next season.”

Salem, who were relegated last season, started off at better than a point a minute.

No 8 Kris Falwasser, fly half Jonny Robinson and full back Chris Savva all crossed within 13 minutes, Robinson adding two conversions.

Goole were boosted by a knock-on by Savva from a long kick downfield and they camped in Salem’s 22 for virtually all the second quarter.

Hooker Craig Fenton tried to crawl his way over the home line but, despite also getting a string of penalties, Goole couldn’t breach the Salem whitewash before the interval.

Debutant centre Dominic Ram sealed the try-scoring bonus point for the hosts four minutes into the second half, but there was another lull before Salem finished with a flourish.

Jonny Luxton, playing at centre instead of in the back row, Rumanian lock Alex Savin and skipper and prop Simon Davies scored tries to keep coach Phil Nilsen and director of rugby Craig Busby’s side on course.