Darlington player-coach Phil Lancaster, Durham county captain for the last two years, admits the selectors are in a quandary over this season's County Championship.

The first match is away to Leicestershire on Easter Monday, April 16, followed by Notts, Lincs and Derby at Hartlepool Rovers and Yorkshire at Wharfedale on the following two Saturdays.

The league programme is supposed to finish on April 14, but the fixture backlog means most clubs likely to supply county players will be tied up until at least the end of April.

Darlington are the exception and after braving appalling conditions to win 31-5 at home to Morpeth on Saturday they have only six league games left.

They are seven points clear of third-placed Huddersfield in North Two East and look certain to be in a promotion play-off for a place in North One.

The fact that the second, third and fourth teams in North Two West all lost on Saturday increased Darlington's chances of home advantage in the play-off, which is scheduled for May 19.

"It would obviously help us to stay match fit for the play-off if a lot of us were playing county rugby," said Lancaster.

"But from a county point of view I would be in favour of picking our strongest team for the first match, even though a lot of them might not be available after that.

"We would want to get off to a good start, then hope to win our home game and go to Wharfedale with a chance of winning the group."

Darlington gave a good account of themselves in the Tetley's Bitter Cup at Wharfedale this season and Lancaster added: "It would be nice to go back there for a county match.

"We have grown as a team since then and are playing better, more controlled rugby. If we were to provide the bulk of the county side we would look forward to it with relish.

"Since professionalism arrived the County Championship has been treated as the poor relation, but for me it's still an honour to represent Durham."

After a bout of flu, Lancaster was happy to sit out Saturday's match and watch a front row with an average age of 20 gradually get to grips with tough opponents.

When an attacking scrum near the posts went backwards in the first half it seemed Darlington might not be well equipped to master their visitors in the bitterly cold wind and rain.

It was 5-5 at half-time, but with the diagonal wind in their favour Darlington dominated after the interval and scored four more tries.

Given the conditions, Paul Lee made an impressive comeback at fly half after four months out with an eye injury.

"After 15 minutes I thought it might be abandoned," he said. "The top inch was soft, but underneath the ground was rock hard, so it was very difficult. The change of shirts at half-time warmed us up a bit.

"The medical people had to wait two months for the swelling in my eye to go down before they could do the laser treatment.

"And if I hadn't had the treatment when I did there was a danger I wouldn't play again, so I'm glad to be back.

"I hadn't done any contact in training, so I was a bit nervous about that. But when I didn't get any reaction from the first two knocks I was OK after that."

Lee's half break after 20 minutes set up the chance for David Glendenning to put Marc Potts over in the right corner.

But Morpeth scored an interception try from 20 metres and missed a very kickable penalty just before half-time.

A strike against the head from a scrum near the posts allowed Craig Lee to burst on to a pass from his brother and shrug off two tackles to score.

Then Del Lewis drove over from the back of a scrum, and Mark Butler came off his wing to barge through the centre from 15 metres.

Glendenning added his third conversion after taking an inside pass from Paul Lee and off-loading just short of the line for replacement hooker Brian Baldwin to score.