LAST weekend was always going to be a landmark moment for Darlington Mowden Park, with the club celebrating ten years at the Darlington Arena.

And the men's and women's teams marked the occasion in style as they both claimed bonus-point victories. The men’s side ran out 53-16 winners against Hull, before DMP Sharks registered their first victory of the season with an impressive 30-5 win over Wasps.

The opening game of the double-header saw Garry Law’s National One side run in eight tries in a dominant display, including a brace from man-of-the-match Yaree Fantini.

“It was a good start to how we want to continue playing until the end of the season," said 25-year-old Fantini. "We’ve shown glimpses of positive play since Christmas, but haven’t managed to close games out.

"We went down to Rosslyn Park and were winning until the 71st minute, so it’s good to finally keep the pressure on until the 80th minute.

"It’s a good feeling, but we need make sure we build on this performance and take it into next week.”

Darlington Mowden Park now head into an important run of fixtures against teams in and around them in the National One table.

Asked about the significance of the next few weeks, Fantini added: “Due to where we are in the table, these next few games are very important, we are playing teams who are close to us so these games can either create a gap between us and the bottom few teams or drag us down.

"We have a few home games coming up against Birmingham, Sale, Plymouth and Esher which is positive considering our home form, so I think we’re in a good spot if we can build on Hull and keep bodies fit to play.”

The biggest result of the day last weekend came later in the evening as DMP Sharks notched their first league win since April 2021.

Six tries from Mark Luffman’s side saw them run out comfortable winners over Wasps to leapfrog their opponents in the table, and the Sharks programme manager was full of praise for his players.

“It’s a massive result for the club and credit has to go to the players for an awful lot of hard work in recent months," he said. "It’s no secret that it’s been a very difficult period but the girls have really stuck at it and they thoroughly deserve Saturday’s win.”

Three first-half tries from American internationals Rachel Ehrecke, Meya Bizer and Kathryn Treder saw the Sharks lead 15-0 at the break, before further scores from Kenny Thomas-Roberts, Kat Craine and Linzi Taylor put the result beyond any doubt.

“Our performances have been gradually improving for a number of weeks now and I was pleased with how it played out this weekend," added Luffman.

"We defended really well throughout and when we kept our composure in attack we put some really good passages of play together.

"We still feel as a team we have a lot of growth areas and we will be working hard on those in the comings weeks so that our performances keep improving.”

Both of Mowden's sides are back at home at the Darlington Arena this weekend in another Saturday double-header.

The men take on Moseley in National One at 3pm, before the Sharks line up against Bristol in a 5.30pm kick off.