Darlington are looking forward to playing on a firm, dry surface at home to New Brighton today and no-one relishes those conditions more than flanker Martin Howe.

At 33, the pacy open side has taken the step-up to National Three North in his stride and has been outstanding in the six successive home wins.

"I'm absolutely thriving on it. I love it," he said. "I'm not one for trudging through the mud and there were about six inches of it at Kendal last week. We got a good tonking, even though in terms of rugby ability we are far superior to them."

Howe is rarely far from the ball, and while he scores his share of tries by supporting the backs he also puts in tackles all over the field.

"The game is more physical and faster at this level, but the main difference is that you have to concentrate for 80 minutes," he said.

"When we played Waterloo at home at the start of the season we lost concentration for 15 minutes and conceded 20 points.

"Even though we lost the first four games it suddenly dawned on me how much I was enjoying it, and now we have found our feet it just gets better and better.

"It's ultra-competitive and it's usually Tuesday before I feel like doing anything physical again. My personal circumstances mean I can only train once a week with the club, but I train quite hard on my own.

"You have to keep on top of things and shake off the knocks as well as maintaining general fitness."

Howe teaches PE at Macmillan College in Middlesbrough, where he is also in charge of the rugby academy and coaches three teams.

He was in the same year as Darlington's player-coach, Craig Lee, at Grangefield School in Stockton, where the elder Lee, Paul, was also a pupil.

"I was quite close to Craig and I also knew Phil Lancaster from playing for the county," he said. "When they approached me to join Darlington from Stockton it was quite flattering that they said I would complement their style. This team has never been shy of throwing the ball around.

"Things were getting a bit political at Stockton. We had got up to second in North One and I felt they should have had more ambition and tried to push on, but they seemed a bit reluctant.

"Although I was dropping down a couple of divisions I felt Darlington were more ambitious. I still have a lot of friends at Stockton and it was a tough decision at the time, but as things have turned out it was the right one.

"When I was younger I wanted to play at this level or above, but I had a very bad ankle injury which kept me out for 18 months and it took a while to get back up.

"Now I'm here I won't be in any rush to finish.

"If we can build around the present squad and perhaps bring in two key players we could do well in this league."

Darlington were 32-5 down at half-time at New Brighton before finally losing 46-33 and it could be a similarly high scoring match today.

"We have been talking all week about the lessons we learned that day," said Howe.

"Again it showed us we can't afford to lose concentration, but we also showed we could expose them by attacking them.

"We have nothing to fear and we have to go straight out and put our markers down. We know we need two or three more wins to feel safe and we can't seem to buy a win away from home.

"We played in mud at Tynedale as well as Kendal, but in a long season there are going to be times when you get those conditions and we have to adapt.

"At home we have a big, wide pitch, the grass is kept fairly short and it's usually dry, which suits us down to the ground."

Darlington have shuffled their backs with Craig Lee and Mark Butler teaming up at centre, while Graham Haswell switches to full back and Tosh McIntee to the wing.

Lancaster explained: "We want to get into the habit of playing without numbers on our backs - it's an effective way of playing for us. We want to play at pace and get in behind them.

"Tosh is a very powerful, direct runner and we want to try him on the wing, while Graham has a lot of pace and can make incisive runs through the middle on second, third or fourth possession."

Darlington Mowden Park are hoping centre Gareth Kerr can get through the game at unbeaten Waterloo.

Martyn Bray was injured in training on Thursday, so Kerr is needed alongside Chris Strong, despite limping off with a groin problem last week.

Andy Foreman and Steve Jones are on the wings, relegating Chris Mattison to the bench alongside Danny Brown, Tim Wilks and Jonny Boatman.

Jon Dye was keen to play, but it was felt best to give him a week's rest after his neck injury so Luke Monument deputises at lock.

Blaydon are leaving at 7.30 for their 2pm kick-off at Dudley Kingswinford. Shaun Cassidy comes into the back row with Peti Keni on the bench as he has been unable to train this week.

Centre Peter Kilburn and winger Colin Duncan return, with Dan Clappison switching to full back.

Tynedale are still ravaged by injury for their trip to Macclesfield. Winger Guy Beaumont scored a try in his first appearance of the season last week but was unable to resume after half-time, while Paul Boston pulled a calf muscle in the pre-match warm-up.

Phil Belgian and Barry Hills are also doubtful, along with flanker Grant Rastall.