MOWDEN Park are known for their skilful, attacking rugby, but on a day for battening down it was their outstanding defence which enabled them to beat the National Two North leaders.

Rorke's Drift cannot have witnessed a more heroic effort than the ten-minute siege Mowden withstood while down to 14 men early in the second half.

Stourbridge battered at the line but were repelled and when Mowden broke out fly half Grant Connon shot through a gap to score their second converted try and stretch the 7-6 interval lead.

The visitors' third penalty with ten minutes left ensured that the gripping drama continued to the end, when Mowden were understandably jubilant.

The victory does no more than consolidate third place, but it signals that progress continues to be made and augurs well for a promotion bid next season.

There was no snow in Darlington, but even the fully-enclosed Northern Echo Arena could not keep out the bitter wind and conditions were rendered even less conducive to running rugby by the greasy, almost grassless surface.

Still, this was a far more enjoyable spectacle that the two 60-point romps Mowden enjoyed in their first three matches at the ground.

When they were penalised at the first scrum it seemed the game's modern curse might spoil the contest, but although they continued to go backwards Mowden proved such struggles need not be fatal.

Resourceful scrum half Zylon McGaffin usually managed to tidy up and get them back on the front foot, while the front row trio of Ralph Appleby, Dan Miller and Junior Fagalilo more than compensated for their scrum struggles through their tackling and general play.

While Mowden won the try count 2-0 they were also 2-1 ahead on tries disallowed for forward passes and looked unfortunate to have the first of those ruled out.

Stourbridge dominated early on but when they kicked a penalty to the corner Guy Van Den Dries pinched the ball at the line-out.

Mowden fell behind when they were penalised at a retreating scrum 20 metres from the posts, but they quickly hit back and a Stourbridge forward was sin-binned for preventing McGaffin from taking a quick penalty.

Connon hit a post from 35 metres, but Mowden kept the pressure on and from a move going right centre Chris Peace cleverly turned the ball inside for full back Henry Robinson. When he off-loaded the ball went to ground, but Appleby scooped it up at pace to charge over, Connon converting.

Five minutes from the interval Stourbridge kicked another penalty to touch, drove on from the line-out and were awarded another penalty, making it 7-6.

The visitors dominated the first 20 minutes of the second half, interrupted only by a counter-attack from Peace.

Van Den Dries suffered a harsh sin-binning for not rolling away after a superb tackle, signalling the ten minutes of heroism It was rewarded by another break from Peace, who found winger Chris McTurk. He was stopped five metres short, but Mowden were back in the game.

The decisive try came when McGaffin managed to get over the gain line from another retreating scrum and when the ball was quickly recycled Connon's acceleration took him through a gap just outside the 22.

His diagonal run was unstoppable and the conversion meant Stourbridge would have to score twice. Mowden were never going to allow that.