A DISAPPOINTED Pete Taylor admits Darlington Mowden Park’s promotion ambitions are all but over following a 24-21 defeat to struggling Billingham in National Three North.

Fourth-placed Mowden are now 13 points behind secondplaced Bradford & Bingley and a further six points adrift of leaders Stockport.

Their cause was not helped on Saturday by a refereeing display that saw five players sent to the sin bin, but Taylor concedes his side’s forwards were unable to cope with Billingham’s greater experience and nous.

“The forwards were simply second best and they know that,” said the Mowden player- coach. “I don’t think the contact area was controlled very well by the referee, but that still doesn’t account for how badly we performed.

“It was a bad day at the office, but we’re still fourth in the league and we have to look forward now. Any talk of promotion has probably gone, but we know we’re better than that performance and it’s up to us to prove it.”

Mowden claimed an early lead when centre Ben Snook crossed and Gavin Painter added the conversion, but Billingham claimed two tries before the interval to make the scoreline 12-7.

A penalty try extended Billingham’s lead to 12 points, and a further score left Mowden trailing 24-7 midway through the second half.

Two excellent individual tries from Robin Eatough raised hopes of a comeback, but Mowden eventually went down by three points.

Middlesbrough’s game at league leaders Stockport was postponed following heavy rainfall in the North West.

Blaydon were comprehensively outclassed by National League One promotion hopefuls London Scottish as they crashed to a 40-3 defeat at Crow Trees.

Second-placed Scottish recorded their 15th straight win, while Blaydon, who have slipped to eighth in the table, have now gone four games without a success.

Andrew Baggett scored Blaydon’s only points of the afternoon, temporarily reducing Scottish’s early lead to four points with a 30-yard penalty.

But the visitors ran in five more tries to go with Benjamin MacDougall’s second-minute score and ran out facile winners.

West Hartlepool maintained their North One East promotion push with a hardfought 12-3 win at Old Crossleyans.

Chris Jones’ penalty was the only score of the first half, leaving West trailing 3-0 at the interval.

The game turned in the 55th minute, though, as the referee awarded West a penalty try after Stephen Stockdale was twice denied close to the line.

Gareth Foreman converted, and in wet and windy conditions, the points were made safe when Jonny Boatman crossed late on following good work from Foreman.

Durham City were comfortable winners over Hartlepool Rovers, running in five tries as they claimed a 37-7 success.

Paul Armstrong, Kenny Reader, Mike Hay, Arnie Stephenson and Rob Smith all scored tries in a game that keeps Rovers rooted to the foot of the North One East table.

In Durham and North One, Darlington kept the pressure on table toppers Gateshead with a 55-0 rout of Sunderland.

Stockton slipped to a 12-11 defeat at Alnwick despite a try from Tom Jeffrey and two penalties from Jeremy Good.