Darlington will be grateful for a two-week break in which to get everybody back to full fitness and work on the weaknesses so apparent on Saturday.

On this evidence they will spend the second half of the season battling with Cleckheaton to avoid the third relegation place in National Three North.

The irony was that some of their forwards, notably Richard Snowball and Dan Miller, played well in a generally outgunned pack, while Del Lewis was again outstanding going forward.

But since Lewis switched to No 8 with young Michael Taylor going to blind side the back row defence has been suspect.

New Brighton's first two tries were scored from long range by back row men, while for Darlington Martin Howe fell below his usual very high standards following his shoulder injury.

They need him firing on all cyclinders and they also seemed to miss prop Joe Oselton as they struggled in the scrums and were unable to make much headway with their driving mauls.

They also lost fly half Paul Lee just before half-time with a recurrence of his hamstring trouble and he's another player they need to have fully fit.

There was little spark behind and the ball never reached dangerous winger Frankie Coulson, but tackling and ball retention were the major problems. They will also be re-emphasising discipline during the break as they have rarely kept 15 men on the field throughout.

Lewis and Dan Oselton were the latest to be sin-binned, but the young hooker looked unfortunate as he was judged to have reacted dangerously to the visiting No 8 blatantly killing the ball when Darlington were threatening to score.

They started well enough and led 8-0. They were 10-8 down at half-time but then came out strongly again and regained the lead when they were down to 13 men.

They probably thought they had done the hard bit when, with their two men back from the sin-bin, a New Brighton player was yellow carded.

But this was the signal for the visitors to reassert themselves and after seeing a huge overlap wasted through poor handling their No 6 decided to go all the way himself, riding several tackles on a 50-metre gallop to the corner.

For all their failings, Darlington edged back in front at 16-15 when David Glendenning kicked a penalty with seven minutes left. But Taylor dropped the restart, someone fell off-side and New Brighton immediately regained the lead.

They then added a third try when a centre chipped through and the ball bounced very kindly for him to send the left winger over. It was about the only time New Brighton's backs strung two passes together.

Darlington took an early lead when Oselton took a short pass at pace on the blind side of a maul and ran 20 metres unopposed to score.

Glendenning added a penalty, but Anthony Birley replied from 40 metres and converted after No 8 Kilimoni Tui'pulota charged in just before the break, dummying past Glendenning.

This was a real kick in the teeth as a minute earlier Darlington had been trying to drive a maul over in the left corner, only to be penalised and Lewis was sin-binned for impeding an attempt to take the penalty quickly.

Tremendous handling and driving by Miller, Snowball and Lewis set up Darlington's second try soon after half-time, finished from close range by Craig Lee.

They seemed to have scored again in the left corner ten minutes from time when replacement winger Fraser Monohan was stopped just short but driven over. A touch judge indicated they hadn't got the ball down, and Glendenning's penalty shortly afterwards proved not to be enough.