DARLINGTON Mowden Park are hoping their speedy young backs will sting the Bees today when Bradford and Bingley come calling.

With home-grown fly half Sam Errington making his first appearance of the season, Mowden revert to the half-back pairing which finished last season as Todd Harrison is back after injury.

Charlie Simpson-Daniel moves out to centre, with Robin Eatough switching to the wing and chairman of rugby Mike Keeligan said: “We have some pace there.

“Sam is a very good ball distributor so that should help us to use our strengths. There are others knocking on the door, with the Fijian winger Ben Seru available again.”

Errington takes over from Gavin Painter, who has a hand injury, while James Knox and Andy Wilson return to the pack.

The first league meeting between Middlesbrough and Billingham takes place at Acklam Park and other than in pre-season practice games it will be the first time the sides have met for more than 40 years.

Billingham have found it tough going since losing player- coach Chris Hyndman with a serious injury in their first match in National Three North and will be fully fired up for the derby.

With one win each from five games, both teams are in the bottom three with Boro one point ahead of their visitors.

Billingham’s director of rugby, Stewart Evans, said: “The main thing for us is that we keep showing signs of improvement.

The games are more intense week in week out and we are adapting to that.”

Blaydon understand that the Cambridge players are sticking together and will be at full-strength for their visit to Crow Trees in National One. With the club reported to owe £250,000 to HM Customs and Revenue, who have served a winding-up order, there were rumours that some players might withdraw their services as they haven’t been paid.

But Blaydon’s player-coach has warned his team to expect the visitors to show strength in adversity and has asked them to switch on from the outset after shipping 30 points in the first half at Cinderford.

“We didn’t execute our game plan for 55 minutes,” he said. “When we finally got our act together we won the final 25 minutes 17-3, scoring three cracking tries and slicing through them almost at will.

“Everyone can see how close we are to some great performances and the results that would go along with that.”

Paddy Dias, who made the difference when he went on last week, comes in at centre for Andrew Baggett, who drops to the bench. He will be joined by Jason Smithson, returning after concussion.

Tynedale coach Tom Borthwick hopes today’s hosts, London Scottish, will take a while longer to start living up to their promotion favourites tag. He said: “They were everyone’s tip to be in the hunt for promotion, but they’ve had a bit of a slow start. With the squad they have, it won’t be long before they find their feet.”

North One East leaders West Hartlepool should maintain their 100 per cent record at home to Northern, who gained promotion with the help of several ex-Blaydon veterans.

They included forwards Dave Guthrie, Selwyn St Bernard and Chris Stewart, plus fly half Dan Clappison, but only Stewart has featured in their struggles so far this season. He has also played for West.

Scott Jordan returns at full back for West after missing last week’s win at Morpeth because he was on an RFU coaching course.

Also back are props Stephen Stockdale and Anth Carr, who has been working away, plus winger Adam Larkin. But Colin Cheslin is unavailable, so the centre partnership of Paul Moss and Peter Hodgson is restored.