THERE were dark mutterings among the Darlington Mowden Park faithful on Saturday as they began to question their support for the link-up with Newcastle Falcons.

It's a marriage which is supposed to lead to Division One, but hopes of instant wedded bliss were dashed by a clinical performance from Blaydon.

Not too much should be read into the scoreline, however, as Mowden simply had one of those days when nothing would go right.

They created as many chances as Blaydon, but four times they either gave a poor pass or dropped the ball with the line at their mercy.

Mark Bedworth also missed two straightforward penalties, while David Dalrymple landed all his kicks for Blaydon.

It would be no surprise if Mowden call on centre Martin Shaw's experience with four Premiership clubs - he started at West Hartlepool - for Saturday's visit of Wharfedale in the Powergen Cup.

New arrivals and the requirement to give experience to Newcastle Academy players means it will take time for Mowden to sort out their best permutations.

Blaydon had obviously sorted themselves out very quickly, however, as they were much better than in the previous week's cup win against Darlington.

No 8 James Keany touched down twice as Blaydon scored two converted tries and a penalty in each half. They took their chances superbly and defended heroically.

Following last week's hat-trick, Mowden switched former Falcons player David Richardson from centre to fly half.

But their backs never clicked, even when they swapped Richardson and Bedworth round in the second half.

They also substituted their two Academy players, No 8 Jason Smithson and centre Nick Hooper, as youngsters are always likely to find it tough going in a physical battle at this level.

Phil Dowson found that in his appearances for Mowden two years ago, but he has now gone on to become an established England Sevens player and is considered to have a bright future with Falcons.

The most influential threequarter was former Northumbria University captain Peter Kilburn, whose incisive running helped to create three of Blaydon's tries.

The first came when he gathered a kick ahead as Mowden dithered and sent Keany surging over, then Mowden ran a penalty under the posts, only for what should have been the scoring pass to go badly astray.

Mowden had most of the early pressure, but with their second attack after 23 minutes Blaydon scored again.

Skipper Dave Guthrie drove on, supported by powerful prop Dan Harper, then quick ball allowed Kilburn to break through and put winger Colin Duncan over.

Mowden kicked a penalty to the corner, which generally proved an unproductive ploy throughout, despite Ian Robinson usually securing the line-out ball.

On this occasion the ball was knocked on in the centre, but Bedworth kicked a simple penalty then Mowden's most threatening attacker, full back Iain Dixon, tried a grubber kick which was expertly cleaned up by Blaydon's classy new full back Dan Clappison.

Mowden put themselves in trouble with a quick line-out throw and the resulting pressure ended with a Dalrymple penalty to make it 17-3 at half-time.

Five minutes later a burst by former Bedford flanker Matt Cook allowed winger Matt Deharty to send Clappison over in the left corner.

Blaydon survived the sin-binning of lock James Houghton as Mowden continued to make basic errors, although they would have scored on the left but for an excellent tackle by Duncan.

Mowden looked a little livelier after switching Andy Foreman from wing to scrum half and with 20 minutes left Dixon cut through from 22 metres to score.

But any hope of a late fightback was dashed when Blaydon came straight back by driving a maul ten metres.

Kilburn broke on the left and the ball was switched right to give Keany a simple run-in.

Mowden squandered yet another chance when winger Aidan Phillipson dropped a pass and Dalrymple added his second penalty as the game entered injury time.

Result: Darlington Mowden Park 8, Blaydon 34.