AFTER another week's rest and recuperation Darlington hope to be virtually at full strength for the visit of National Three North leaders Halifax tomorrow.

It will be only the second home game of the season for Darlington, who have already had four trips to the Midlands, including the first round Powergen Cup exit at Rugby which has granted them two free weeks recently.

Halifax are still in the cup and had to trek down to Cornwall for their third round match last Saturday, winning 9-5 at Launceston.

Unfortunately for Darlington, the cup result provided confirmation that Halifax have moved forward since losing at home to Launceston at the end of last season in a play-off for promotion to Division Two.

Darlington's player-coach Craig Lee has had a further two weeks to return to full fitness after making a premature comeback from his knee operation in the draw at Dudley Kingswinford.

Darlington Mowden Park, who also had last week off, visit Fylde tomorrow and could hand a senior debut to 19st South African lock Naude Pretorius.

He played in the second team's 23-8 win last week at Westoe, who are now coached by Richard Arnold, who was with Mowden last season.

Arnold reported that Pretorius put himself about and looked as though he would be an asset to the first team, while Tim Wilks did well playing at hooker.

Usually a back row man, Wilks is likely to be on the bench tomorrow but has risen up the pecking order now that Tom McLaren has returned to Australia.

Another back row player, Jon Dye, looks likely to be out for the season as he needs a hip operation and will not be fit before April.

* Following their good run in the Powergen Junior Vase last season, Northallerton are through to the third round this time after winning 13-5 at home to Bradford Salem last Saturday.

As Salem are second in Yorkshire Two, a division above their hosts, they expected to win and brought a big following with them.

With Matty Bell unavailable, North switched Simon Kiddle to the wing and brought in Ed Bulman for his seasonal debut at full back, where he performed well.

Skipper Steve Robinson was outstanding at No 8, putting in a lot of crucial tackles, while his back row colleague Ben Allerton scored an excellent try.

In wet conditions, Salem chose to play uphill in the first half and North made good use of the slope in a well-contested game featuring some fierce scrummaging and good defence.

Fly half Brian Tucker put North ahead with a 20th minute penalty and they then enjoyed ten minutes of pressure culminating in a line-out drive from which Allerton broke off to stand on Tucker's shoulder.

He took a short pass from the fly half and crashed through three tackles to score, Tucker converting to make it 10-0 at half-time.

As Salem's frustration grew in the second half they had three men sin-binned at various times, but after 60 minutes their pressure brought a try when a lock scored off the back of a ruck.

Two minutes later Tucker kicked a long-range penalty and North held on doggedly under late pressure.

Tomorrow's match in Yorkshire Three is away to Skipton, who are one place below North on the same number of points.

Darlington Mowden Park RFC U-12s recovered from a slow start to beat Ryton 31-14 in their first game of the season.

Mowden conceded a try in the first minute, but Max Gardner scored a try which Thomas Adkins converted to level the scores.

Thomas Raw's unconverted try made it to Mowden 12-7 at the break and from the restart the outstanding Mick Chat made the most of a Gateshead fumble to score, Adkins adding the conversion.

Ryton replied with a try but Chat scored his second try and Michael Patan ran almost the length of the field to score the last touchdown of the game, Chat adding the conversion.

Mowden U-9s recovered from a 65-0 defeat to an older and bigger Gateshead team to show great spirit in losing a second game just 15-10.