THE bonus-point wins keep coming for Lymm.

They made it seven victories from seven games with a stunning 53-22 home success against Otley, with the seventh successive bonus point taking them clear of Leeds Tykes at the top of National League 2 North.

Their unbeaten tag will be put to the test at fourth-from-bottom Hull on Saturday, but if they repeat the kind of performances they have been producing then eight from eight is on the cards.

They are showing they can soak up pressure and can overcome hurdles, as they scored plenty of points while being down to 14 men during two periods of the game.

And the exciting prospect is that head coach Andy Davies believes his side have not peaked yet.

“Otley played some quality rugby at the start of the game, which we did well to defend and deal with,” said Davies.

“We then started to get some possession and were just so clinical with ball in hand.

“There’s still a lot more work to do but the boys are rising to every challenge thrown at them.

“It’s a great bunch of lads who should be very proud of their efforts so far.”

The expectation was that it would be a tight game, but in the end Lymm swept the visitors away, playing some exhilarating rugby.

And it was achieved with a number of team changes, including the absence of the dynamic back-row duo of Josh Hadland and Harry Saxton-Martin who have been key to the Lymm defensive effort all season.

Lymm weathered the early Otley storm and got themselves 14-0 ahead within 20 minutes, thanks to catch-and-drive tries by Matty Hand and Rob Makin, both converted by Tom Shard.

Even the 30th-minute sin-binning of Lymm centre Toby Wilson for a high tackle did not impact on Lymm’s scoring prowess because while a man down they extended their advantage to 29-3 by the interval.

Sam Wadsworth poked on Shard’s kick behind the defence and won the race to touch down, Shard converted and added a penalty before their third maul score of the afternoon was claimed by Nick Rigby.

Within five minutes of the restart Nathan Beesley scored his first of the afternoon following a clever kick through from Callum Morris.

This was closely followed by a second for Rigby, who was on the end of some great interplay between Wadsworth and Paddy Jennings.

It was then that Lymm were bizarrely reduced to 14 men for the rest of the game.

With Lymm getting on the wrong side of the off-side line too often for the referee’s liking he decided to issue a team yellow, but inadvertently, or not, he picked out Wilson as the recipient of the team yellow. And as this was the young centre’s second yellow of the afternoon, it converted to a red.

Otley cashed in immediately with their first try but for the second time Lymm saw going down to 14 men as an extra incentive.

Two scintillating tries followed from wingers Beesley and Jennings, with Shard converting the latter to take the score to 53-8.

The final 15-minutes of the half saw Lymm empty the bench and the game became fast and lose.

The numerical advantage for Otley finally started to tell and they scored two converted tries.

Lymm (1-15). Ralph McEachran, Rob Makin, Matty Hand, Ben Thompson, Rhys Lilley, Nick Rigby, Seb Kelly, Oli Higginson, Cal Morris, Tom Shard, Paddy Jennings, Toby Wilson, Jack Stride, Nathan Beesley, Sam Wadsworth. Replacements: Dan Hunter, James Pitcher, Isaac Millachip, Ethan Kermode, Tom Manaton.