FOURTH-placed Ilkley while not taking advantage of every opportunity that presented itself, still laid down a marker to their SSE North One East promotion ambitions last Saturday in front of a bumper derby crowd.

After defeating third-from-bottom Bradford & Bingley 32-13, Ilkley coach Rhys Morgan said: "It shows how far we have come when we can put a team like the Bees to the sword, and if we had taken more of our chances we would have scored 50 points."

They may only have been promoted last season but there is no doubting the ambition of the host club, with Morgan adding:

"Our player-coach Stevie Graham wants promotion, while I want us to win every game, which translates into the same thing."

The Bees, who have still to win away from home, only had two periods of superiority – the opening five minutes of the first half and the first 20 minutes of the second half, but Ilkley left winger Ben Magee scored three first-half tries to put Ilkley in the driving seat at 20-8.

While Bees flanker Chris Fisher bagged his second try in the 54th minute, Ilkley finished on top, adding two more tries in the final ten minutes via Alistair Monks and replacement James Crossley, the first of which secured Ilkley a bonus point.

Morgan, who pointed out in midweek that the hosts had 22 senior players out of the reckoning (18 injured and four unavailable), added: "We over-complicated the line-out at times but we were quicker and more clinical in general, and our replacements Rupert Garland, J-H Johnson and James Crossley would get into most starting XVs in this division."

Bradford & Bingley's forwards coach Ronnie Kelly found it difficult to find the right words afterwards.

The stalwart Otley and Bees prop eventually said: "When we train, it is 100 per cent in terms of commitment and work ethic but we need to find a way to put that into our game.

"We started well but then we just lost it, and that is disappointing."

The crowd was estimated to be anything from 1200 to 1500 as the clubhouse balcony was packed and the terracing below it well populated, while there were also plenty of spectators on the far side of the field.

Ilkley's rugby chairman Andrew Munro said: "We haven't had a crowd as good as that since the run to Twickenham in the RFU Intermediate Cup in 2011-12.

"I can't remember seeing cars parked all the way around the ground like that before, and I reckon there must have been anything from 1,200 to 1,500 people there."

A minute's silence was observed before the match for former Bradford district representative Leslie 'Legs' Bentley, who died a week last Sunday.