Darlington Mowden Park

Mowden Park RFC 49 West Hartlepool RFC 5

Mowden Under-13s go on there North West tour having notched up there eighth consecutive win of the season with another strong performance against West Hartlepool who with some fine tackling kept Mowden at bay until the tenth minute, when Mowdens powerful forwards broke West's defence spun the ball out to James Park who scored under the posts Daniel Wilson converting.

This opened the floodgates and Mowden ran in three more try's before half time Luke Kelly (2) and James Park all converted by Daniel Wilson.

In the second half Mowden again took advantage of there strong squad by making six changes and after seven minutes Mowden stole the ball from West's line out and Daniel Wilson went over and scored converting his try.

West replied with a great forwards try in the corner the conversion just dropping short Mowden finished the game off five minutes later with two quick try's from Jack Hughes and Mark Tweddle Daniel wilson converting making it seven from seven an the final score 49-5.

Mowden Park Under-14s

Mowden Park Under-14s played host to some tough opposition in the form of Westoe on Sunday. The Westoe defence had Mowden camped out on their 22 for the first 26 minutes before an inevitable try scored by Jamie Whitfield put Mowden into the lead just before half time. Just five minutes into the second half Mowden increased their lead with a fantastic break by Luke Edwards, running almost three quarters of the pitch to score a second try. Adam Gardner converted to take the score to 12-0.

The lead was increased further just a couple of minutes later when a chain of passes from Chris Hossell and Adam Gardner, with great support by Luke Edwards lead to Adam scoring the third try for Mowden. Westoe tried hard to make a mark on the game and were eventually rewarded with a try around 20 minutes into the second half bringing the score to 17-5. But this was too little too late as Mowden's fullback Mathew Gee collected the ball in the closing stages of the game to run almost the length of the pitch to score again. The whole Mowden team played well and the final score of 22-5 shows the team effort put in by all players.

Mowden are continually looking to strengthen their squad with newcomers welcome. Contact Terry Warne (01325) 247223.

Mowden Park Under 16s

Postponed from the previous week because of a frozen pitch, Mowden Park Under-16s' first round Durham County Cup tie saw them facing West Hartlepool away from home in a close, keenly-contested game on a muddy pitch. West Hartlepool are a tight, well-trained unit and their initial pressure almost saw them cross the Mowden line on two or three occasions in the first twenty minutes. In one of Mowden's first real attacks of the game, prop Richard Littlefair made a good drive forward before the ball was rucked out to back row Ben Charlton who made ground before passing to Chris Dodd who went over some seven metres in from touch. Play remained tight with no real chances until on 32 minutes Mowden were caught offside in front of their own posts. West converted to leave the half-time score at 3-5.

Mowden may have felt at half time that they had seen off their opponents' best, but another penalty given away in front of the posts saw West go ahead 6-5, and spurred another period of consistent pressure, until a good clearance kick gave Adam Hunt the opportunity to hack ahead and run some 40m for a try under the posts. Mark Zissler converted this, and Mowden began a spell of fragile dominance. Beginning with a line-out on West's ten metre line the ball was worked out to a maul, and produced good ball which shot along the line to Adam Hunt who went over in the corner for his second. West upped the pressure once again, until the clearance kick from a Mowden scrum 20 metres from their line was charged down and West were able to score their only try. Mowden withstood their remaining efforts to complete a sound victory.

Darlington Mowden Park 3rds

Mowden Park demonstrated a good form of entertaining rugby against Sunderland 2nds on a very heavy pitch. A fumble from Sunderland's defence allowed Gary Liddel to clean up the loose ball and sprint 20m to under the posts, Roger Prior converted.

Ten minutes later young second row Andrew Rhoades intercepted a ball and sprinted from Sunderland's 10m lines to score. From the restart Mowden retained possesion and with the ball moving swiftly along the backs saw winger Alan Evans' over Sunderland's line.

Twenty minutes into the game Mowden full-back Dan Bankcroft ran into the line and received the ball and ran from the half way line to score. From a scrum on Mowden's 10m line scrum half Roger Prior sold Sunderland an excellent dummy, found a gap in Sunderland's defence and ran in another try for Mowden, Evans and Andrew Tonkin scored for Mowden before the break.

Within two minutes of the second half Bankcroft ran in another Mowden try from his own 10m line. Sunderland, whilst under immense pressure, never gave up and replied with a good breakaway try by their second row which was converted.

The next 20 minutes saw Mowden ease off the intense pressure, but with 12 minutes to go picked up their game and ran in a further four tries. The final result was DMP 3rds 76, Sunderland 7. Mowden;s scorers: Evans 3, Bankcroft 3, Liddel 2, Rhoades, Prior, Tonkin, & Llewellyn, Conversions Prior 7, Bankcroft 1.