BLAYDON will fancy their chances of reaching Twickenham in the Intermediate Cup after a surprisingly easy fourth round win away to the team who won the trophy two years ago.

They beat Manchester club Aldwinians 41-8 and their chief concern in the fifth round draw will be to avoid a trip to Sheffield.

Blaydon are the only North-East survivors as Hartlepool Rovers lost 32-13 at home to Cleckheaton, Redcar went down 24-7 at Lymm and Percy Park lost 16-5 at home to Wigton.

Playing uphill into the wind in the first half, Blaydon led through a penalty by fly half Ryan Roberts and were in control when scrum half Ben Stevenson nipped over for a try just before half-time.

With the elements in their favour, Blaydon had too much pace for their hosts, several times turning defence into attack as they scored five more tries.

Roberts touched down twice, added three more conversions and also provided an excellent cross-kick for winger Andy Savory to score.

Two of the tries followed breaks by Dean Michniewicz, one of them being finished off by his fellow centre John Marriott.

Redcar were 13-0 down at half-time at Lymm and a try by Ian Fawcett, converted by Garry Schofield, was not enough to get them into the game.

Blaydon's delayed Durham Cup tie against Hartlepool Rovers has been rearranged for December 30 and the following week they will be playing in the Intermediate Cup instead of visiting Mowden Park in North Division One.

Mowden will then have four league games to rearrange, and assuming they continue to progress in the county cup their only free Saturdays between December 30 and April 21 are on February 3 and March 24.

Mowden began their bid to win the Durham Cup for the fourth successive season with a 70-0 win at Consett, who were heavily outgunned but never gave up.

With Giles Mitchell given an outing at open side, Darren McKinnon played at No 8 and scored a hat-trick of tries, as did Mick Kent.

The other winger, Steve Jones, relished the chance to get on the end of Mowden's free-flowing moves and scored two tries, with Kevin McCallum and Tasi Tuhana getting one each. Kevan Oliphant added five conversions.

Stockton won the repeat of the 1997 final 33-6 at home to Sunderland, with Loa Topou among the scorers.

The Tongan, who was with Wigton last season and has since being playing in Western Australia, is keen to play for Stockton for the rest of the season.

Both he and lock John Saunders went off the bench at half-time and made a difference as the interval lead was only 12-6. Stockton led through a try by flanker Joe Green, but two penalties by Ian Dobson put Sunderland 6-5 ahead.

Winger Simon Crozier then made a good break and passed inside for full back Dave Turner to score.

Topou, who replaced Andy Bare at centre, brushed off several tackles to score eight minutes after the break, then Crozier set up another try for Turner before scoring himself.

Stockton's match at Bradford and Bingley next week has been postponed because of the flood damage to the Yorkshire club's pitch.

The match will be played at Keighley on December 23.

Of the two players sent off at Mowden Park two weeks ago, Jamie Brown's dismissal was deemed sufficient punishment, while Geoff Waterfield was handed a three-match suspension.

Billingham chose the county cup tie at home to Ryton to open their new clubhouse, but on a boggy pitch they lost 20-12.

Unbeaten Westoe went 3-0 down at home to Houghton, but led 11-3 at half-time then cut loose with five more tries to win 39-3