WITH the threat of relegation from National Three North being removed, Mowden Park began as though a huge burden had been lifted.

They stormed into a 14-0 lead after two minutes, although both tries owed much to some surprisingly woeful tackling by the promotion-seeking visitors.

Nuneaton then knuckled down to grind out a vital win, but the entertainment vanished when former England prop Darren Garforth took the field after ten minutes.

Nuneaton must have thought they could beat Mowden without him as they left him on the bench, and perhaps they would have done as they already had the gap down to 14-10 when their tight head was stretchered off.

Garforth's first deed was to square up to Mowden hooker Junior Fagalilo, and the game instantly became niggly.

His half-time pep talk, clearly audible to the tender ears of the Mowden fans, would have made Peter Reid blush. As a tactical analysis of how the match could be won it said absolutely nothing and Nuneaton scraped home by virtue of kicking three penalties to one during the 70 minutes Garforth was on the field.

They edged in front midway through the second half, but Mowden created the better chances in the last 15 minutes and could have won had they allowed fly half Anthony Mellalieu to kick for goal shortly before the end.

The penalty was on the 22 eight metres in from the right touchline, but they kicked it to touch then lost the line-out.

The early tries came from long range. From the first line-out just inside their own half Mowden's scrum half, Andy Foreman, stood off and took a pass at pace.

He went straight through the first line of defence and also got past a dithering Tim Stimpson before being tripped ten metres short. But he got up to score under the posts.

From the restart Mowden moved the ball to centre Tim Visser, who also capitalised on Nuneaton's reluctance to tackle by racing 60 metres to score.

The next restart failed to go ten metres, but after collecting the ball Mowden were penalised for not releasing and their momentum vanished.

Nuneaton applied two minutes of pressure before kicking a penalty to the corner and driving over from the line-out.

Fly half Gareth Cull converted and added a penalty just as Garforth was preparing to come on.

The first flare-up followed shortly afterwards, and given that there were several lectures to both captains Mowden lock Iain Robinson was unlcuky to be the only player yellow-carded.

It came when he was adjudged to have prevented release from a ruck from an offside position under the posts, allowing Cull to kick the third of his four penalties to reduce the gap to one point ten minutes after half-time.

Mellalieu succeeded with one of his two penalty attempts for Mowden and his late drop goal attempt fell just under the bar.

Result: Darlington Molwden Park 17, Nuneaton 19.