WHAT would have seemed almost impossible ten years ago becomes reality today when Darlington's two rugby clubs meet in national league combat at Mowden Park's Yiewsley Drive ground.

Given that both teams want to display their skills rather than get sucked into a physical battle, the standard of rugby deserves to draw a big crowd.

Few outsiders believe that both can survive at National Three North level, which is the main reason for recent merger talks. But all that will be on the back burner today when the rivalry will be as strong as ever.

Both teams lost their opening league games two weeks ago and for Mowden, in particular, a win is essential if their alliance with Newcastle Falcons is to be seen to be working.

They have also had two seasons to get used to this level of rugby, whereas promoted Darlington are still feeling their way and know they need to strengthen their squad with more recruitment.

But player-coach Craig Lee is confident they will be more competitive than in last April's heavy Durham Cup defeat.

"We were too one-dimensional in that game and ran out of ideas," he said. "They targeted me and my brother Paul and we got sucked into it. We have to realise we have other players around us and it's up to them to start doing a bit more.

"We have sorted out what we need to do in certain areas of the pitch and hope to rely on our skill levels rather than brute strength.

"We need a different game plan in the higher league and in our first game against Waterloo it worked quite well apart from ten minutes in the second half.

"Bryan Dixon has been a big loss, but our new back-row man, Andrew Carphin, has trained really well and we have high hopes of him."

Darlington are also blooding a new full back in Richard Lang, while Mowden introduce a 15st winger in Craig Firth, who has ambitions to play for the Falcons.

He started with Percy Park, but has spent a couple of years playing a high standard of Rugby League in Australia. Lang is an ex-Bath University colleague of Darlington prop Dan Miller. He has some goal-kicking pedigree, but Lee will continue with the task today even though a knee problem dissuades him from practising.

He hopes that Allan Calvert's return to the club as second-team manager might help with the goal-kicking, while there are also still hopes that David Glendenning will return to play. Another former first-teamer making a comeback in the thirds is flanker John Whitehouse.

With David Haswell suffering from a dead leg, Tosh McIntee partners Lee at centre and Mark Butler makes his first appearance of the season on the wing. Lock Tom Wilkinson also makes his seasonal debut after recovering from a broken foot.

Mowden's hopes of introducing Richard Arnold and Martin Shaw have been dashed. Arnold trained well this week, but suffered a recurrence of his back problem, while Shaw aims to be fit for the trip to Fylde in two weeks.

Mowden's Kelekolio Paino and Eni Gisende played for the Falcons on Monday night in their opening match in the new National Second Teams League at Orrell, where they won comfortably. They have another game at home to Sale next Monday (7.30).

How well this sharing of players works remains to be seen, although it should not present a problem this week as Mowden's Powergen Cup exit leaves them without a game next Saturday.

Darlington also have a free day and both clubs have arranged to play university opposition in midweek. Darlington entertain Newcastle next Wednesday (7.30), while Mowden are going to Durham the following Wednesday.

Mowden Park: I Dixon, C Mattison, D Richardson, C Strong, C Firth, M Bedworth, A Foreman, I Keeligan, T Tuhana, D Sinclair, K Paino, I Robinson, J Dye, T Irwin, T McLaren.

Darlington: R Lang, F Coulson, T McIntee, C Lee, M Butler, P Lee, R Stewart, P Lancaster, R Goddard, D Miller, T Wilkinson, R Snowball, A Carphin, M Howe, D Lewis.

Also in National Three North, Blaydon entertain Fylde, who sold a pitch to bring in players in a bid to return to Division Two.

Blaydon hand a debut to New Zealander Peti Keni, who played for Barnard Castle last season.

He is at blind side with former Harlequins Under 21 captain Sam Walton reverting to hooker as Matt Hall suffered a gashed eye at Tynedale last week.

Full back Dan Clappison switches to centre with Robert Windle taking the No 15 shirt.

Flanker Matt Cook and centre Peter Kilburn have recovered from injuries.