COMING off an impressive performance against Billingham, Ilkley head of rugby Rhys Morgan is keen to keep their winning run going as they travel to Vale of Lune on Saturday.

“Taking a few scalps is one of the things we wanted to achieve this season, which shows we’re more than capable beating the big teams.

“We’ve achieved quite a few firsts this season, including beating Sandal for the first time, winning away at Kirkby Lonsdale and then beating Billingham at Stacks Field.

Morgan was particularly pleased with last weekend's win.

He said: "Apart from their opening try, most of the the time they didn’t have an answer for us. So I’m chuffed to bits with our performance.

“Even before they scored that first try, we had quite a lot of possession,” he said.

“We had them on the racks on three occasions. If we would have capitalised, we could have got more out of the first 20 minutes.

“But overall it was a dominant performance. Having a lot of self-belief is really important.”

Morgan added his team started growing in confidence and self-belief after a great result against Harrogate on December 8, when Ilkley came from two tries down to win 24-17.

This Saturday, Ilkley travel to second from bottom Vale of Lune, who they beat 29-5 at Stacks Field in late September.

“They’re at the bottom end of the table, but they’ll be tough to beat away,”said Morgan. “We’ve got to keep our concentration and not treat them lightly.

“They turned Billingham over,” Morgan said: “They’re getting used to the speed at the level after earning promotion to this division. We have to make sure our defensive system is right, as they play open rugby and throw the ball around well.”

Morgan said Ilkley are keen to keep on winning, because if they get a victory on Saturday and Blaydon beat Harrogate away, Ilkley would move up to fourth in the North Premier table.

Ilkley will be ringing in a couple of changes for this Saturday as second row Luke Pearson is away, which will clear the way for young and talented Ben Warrington to make a start.

With full back Charlie Hudson, who has been on loan from Otley, returning to the National League Two North club, another loan player coming the other way is Kobe O’Brien.

“I want to thank Charlie Maunder at Otley,” said Morgan.

“We’ve got a good working relationship, which is crucial for us going forward as we seek to maintain our National League Three status.”