WHILE Peter Ramage's loyalty to his master is both admirable and understandable, his assertion that Newcastle remain North-East football's top dog is at best misplaced, at worst a downright perversion of the truth.

The basis for the young pup's argument, ahead of yesterday's Tees-Tyne derby, was the Magpies' position in the Premiership.

"If you go by the league position, we are the best team," the defender argued, as the Magpies sat two points and two places ahead of their local rivals going into the Riverside clash.

Hardly a chasm.

Yesterday's victory increased that to five points but it could be argued it is completely irrelevant in the scheme of things.

Despite the joy bragging rights will have brought for the Geordies, it is abundantly clear to all but the most blinkered of supporters that, in football's version of Crufts, there is now only one team in the region worthy of being acclaimed supreme champion at the end of this season, and they don't play in black and white.

You see, hypothetically, Middlesbrough could finish 17th and Newcastle eighth in the Premiership and the achievements of the latter would still count for nought.

Who remembers who came eighth last season?

Even if it were to be achieved all it would mean is a few extra pennies in Freddy Shepherd's coffers.

At the end of the day, European football is the only true measure of success in the modern game, and on that score, and at this moment in history, Newcastle hold mongrel status.

While Boro are hardly pedigrees themselves yet, their coat is looking far shinier than that of the club from St. James' Park.

Such was the relative importance of yesterday's game to Boro boss Steve McClaren that he made four changes to the line-up which created history on Thursday night in the spectacular UEFA Cup quarter-final win over Basle.

While a quartet of alterations hardly merits a charge of fielding a weakened side, when compared with Newcastle's one swap - the returning Titus Bramble for Ramage, ironically - it showed where the priorities lay for both sides.

On Wednesday, McClaren squares up to fellow England job candidate, Alan Curbishley, when Boro take on Charlton for a place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup.

The Teessiders then face the long trip to Portsmouth on Saturday in the league, West Ham at home on Monday, followed by the first leg of the UEFA Cup semi-final against Steaua Bucharest.

As for the Magpies, knocked out of the FA Cup at the quarter-final stage and the Carling Cup by Wigan's reserves before it even mattered, all they have got to look forward to is the end of the season, and maybe the possibility that McClaren will become Sven-Goran Eriksson's successor.

After all, the way things are going, it would seem that's the only way they stand a chance of usurping the team from the banks of the River Tees.

The key to success in any field is stability at the helm. A house is only as strong as the foundations it is built on and whereas the Magpies' appears to have been constructed on sand, Boro's is erected on far sturdier stuff.

Chairman Shepherd's policy of shifting from manager to manager to manager in the hope of ending the long quest for silverware has proven a recipe for disaster. Counterpart Steve Gibson's approach appears far more sensible.

Even in the lean times he has stood by McClaren, safe in the knowledge that when he invited him to the North-East he had done his homework and knew, down to the last detail, that he had got the right man.

Yesterday's defeat will have done nothing to make him waiver from that belief.

All it did was throw the Magpies a bone - one they will have long finished chewing on when Boro's fans consolidate their top dog status in the next few weeks.