MUCH more of this and Alan Brown will have to be dubbed "evergreen."

At 38, National Three North's leading try scorer took his tally to 16 as Darlington collected their ninth four-try bonus in 11 games and moved up to third spot.

They don't have the strength in depth of their next two opponents, Blaydon and Mowden Park, so Saturday's injuries to Martin Howe and Craig Lee could be a concern.

Howe has a suspected broken hand and Lee a recurring knee problem, and while there are talented youngsters keen to step in the experience could be missed.

With the bottom two already looking marooned, Cleckheaton looked strong candidates on Saturday to join them if the usual three are relegated from this division.

Darlington were in control for all but the first ten minutes of the second half, when it seemed the visitors might have worked out how to stop their driving maul.

They can be sure that Blaydon will also be working on that this week, but they again showed they can be equally effective at pick-and-drive while there was also some good handling, despite wet conditions.

With half backs David Andrew and Paul Lee in sparkling form, and winger Simon Crozier and full back David Glendenning keen to get involved, the backs played a full part, even if four of the five tries did come from back row men.

There was also a brace for Michael Taylor, ensuring that Brown did not establish a monopoly of coming up with the ball on the end of forward drives.

Not that he's any slouch further out as he showed when gathering an ambitious chip out of defence by the Cleckheaton full back, riding a tackle and passing inside to Richard Snowball.

That was one of several occasions in the first 15 minutes when Darlington almost got to the line, two other near misses following breaks by the Lee brothers.

It looked as though they might pay for not taking their chances when a dropped ball allowed Cleckheaton to break out, but Crozier covered back well.

After 16 minutes Darlington kicked a penalty to the corner and recycled the ball, working it in-field, for Brown to be driven over near the posts.

After all their goal-kicking problems centre Ben Snook was restored to the role and took the chance of his only conversion, all the other tries coming in the corners.

Cleckheaton quickly came back with a 25-metre penalty by fly half Chris Quinn for their only points.

Darlington were adept at probing the blind side and the next two tries both came from Paul Lee having a dart for the line.

He stayed on his feet and first Taylor finished off the drive then Brown. Inbetween Snook landed a simple penalty for a 20-3 half-time lead.

Cleckheaton enjoyed ten minutes of pressure without reward at the start of the second half, then when they dropped the ball Crozier hacked on and almost scored for Darlington.

When visiting flanker Geoff Jones was sin-binned Snook landed the 30-metre penalty, but with the rain getting heavier the game became scrappy.

The fourth try came after 60 minutes when forward pressure sucked in the defence and another blind side move allowed winger Frankie Coulson to scamper over from ten metres.

Ten minutes later the ball went along the line to Coulson and a maul was set up in the right corner, resulting in Taylor's second try.

While it was too one-sided to be a classic, at least Humberside referee Matthew Daubney allowed the game to flow much better than on his last visit to Blackwell Meadows for October's dreadful game against New Brighton.

Result: Darlington 33, Cleckheaton 3.