DURHAM officials are hoping that the county cup chaos will resolve itself before the end of April so the event does not overlap with the County Championship.

But it seems the only way that can happen is for the three National Three North clubs involved to ensure their safety within the next three weeks.

Darlington Mowden Park will be up against last season's player-coach Richard Arnold in the semi-final of the cup.

They won their delayed first round tie 41-3 at home to Hartlepool Rovers on Saturday, while Arnold's Westoe won 23-8 at Stockton.

Mowden will be speaking to Arnold about a potential date for the clash at South Shields, although it is further complicated by Westoe's Twickenham appearance in the Powergen Intermediate Cup final on April 16.

Blaydon have been pressed into playing their first round tie at Horden on Wednesday, April 6, and will entertain Darlington in a repeat of last year's final if they win. But none of the National Three trio want to play a midweek semi-final before they have secured their league status.

The scheduled date for the cup final is April 30, but Mowden and Darlington have both had to rearrange their final league games for that day.

Durham secretary Chris McLoughlin said: "At the moment I can't see a solution. We can only work as closely as possible with the clubs and try to negotiate something.

"We certainly don't want the cup and the County Championship to overlap because we are relying on the National Three North clubs for the backbone of our team.

"We start with Oxfordshire at Gateshead on May 7, then have North Midlands at Stourbridge and Cumbria at Darlington. So we feel we have a chance of getting to Twickenham on May 28 and we would like the team to have a clear run at it."

Mowden rested several players against Rovers but the gap of two divisions was still obvious as they ran in seven tries.

They gave opportunities to Matthew Brown at full back and hooker Mark Darlington, while recalling lock Luke Monument and flanker Matt Wright, and all acquitted themselves well.

The game gave lock Kelekolio Paino a further chance to build his match fitness after a long injury absence and he made several telling charges, increasing the feeling that he still has a big part to play this season.

Mowden enjoyed total forward dominance but Rovers defended well for the first ten minutes and broke out once through Andy Foreman, the former Mowden player, who started at centre and switched to scrum half after the interval.

Following forward pressure centre Mark Bedworth scored the first try after 16 minutes, then Rovers' only points came from a well-struck penalty by Gareth Foreman.

Wright was stopped just short before the ball was moved out for Darlington to step inside before flicking the ball back out for flanker Fosita Tanginoa to score the first of his two tries.

Winger Michael Breen raced in to make it 15-3 at half-time, and further tries were added by Paino, Wright, No 8 Matt Holmes and Tanginoa, with Bedworth adding three conversions.

Rovers' best chance came when they drove a maul 30 metres into the right corner, but they lost the ball and Mowden moved it out, only to knock on when a try looked certain.

Neither player-coach took part in the other tie, with Arnold resting and Stockton's Alan Brown unavailable.

In a hard-fought contest Westoe led 8-3 at half-time and added to winger Rob Beattie's try with further touchdowns by full back Craig Stephenson and flanker Gary Walton.

Jeremy Good landed Stockton's penalty and replacement forward Dave Moulder scored a late try.

In the Durham Intermediate Cup Durham City won 33-0 at home to Ryton, while Gateshead thrashed Houghton 65-0. Consett were handed a walkover by Hartlepool.