Darlington hit back too late in Preston swamp

The consolation was that next Saturday's visitors, Liverpool St Helens, lost 20-3 at home to New Brighton to stay in the third relegation spot.

Preston are still two points behind Liverpool and are unlikely to escape despite this win, but the Merseysiders' visit to Blackwell Meadows has now become crucial.

If Darlington win they will be five points clear of the danger zone and Liverpool have only three home games left, one of them against Darlington Mowden Park at the end of this month.

While Mowden's pitch was deemed too wet to entertain Halifax, as was Blaydon's for the visit of Waterloo, Darlington were required to play in heavy rain on a pitch already covered in pools of water.

As they had played in mud at Tynedale and Kendal, this was the third successive away game where conditions had not suited their fluent style.

But they had their chances and looked in control at 13-7 up just after half-time, only to find themselves 22-13 down 30 minutes later.

A late fightback produced a converted try just before the end and they were attacking again when the full-time whistle blew, much to the Grasshoppers' relief.

The try-count was 3-3 but Darlington missed two penalties and two conversions, with Craig Lee temporarily taking over the kicking after Mark Butler injured an ankle in scoring a try after five minutes.

The centre burst through from ten metres out to score wide out and needed treatment, but he recovered well enough to land a 17th minute penalty.

By that time Preston had scored a converted try through the league's leading try scorer, Oliver Viney, which took his season's tally to 14.

Darlington applied pressure towards the end of the first half and No 8 Del Lewis got to the line, but there could be little argument with the referee's ruling of a double movement as he had crawled the last three metres.

Leading 8-7 at half-time, Darlington went further ahead six minutes after the break when they drove over the line and Paul Lee emerged with the ball.

But then they lost their way and after Steve Gough cut the gap with a penalty, prop Dan Miller was sin-binned for foul play.

Just before he returned Preston scored through left winger Russell Flynn to take the lead with 11 minutes left, and five minutes later scrum half Charlie Du Pre also touched down.

As Darlington fought back Miller looked to have grounded the ball from one of several forward drives, but the try was not awarded and the game was entering injury time when Craig Lee splashed through to score under the posts following a scrum.

Butler converted and broke from halfway shortly afterwards. But his chip ahead was deflected into touch by the full back's hand and the referee blew for time.

As there is a blank date on February 21, the Mowden v Halifax and Blaydon v Waterloo games are likely to be staged then.

Tynedale braved the conditions to beat Dudley Kingswinford 22-10 in a Corbridge quagmire, in which the sides were indistinguishable inside ten minutes.

A penalty and 35th minute converted try put Dudley 10-0 up, but in first half injury time Tynedale were thwarted at three successive scrums and a penalty try was awarded.

No 8 Andrew Murray converted then touched down a pushover try six minutes after the break for a 12-10 lead. With the home forwards now dominating they created two further tries for scrum half Ed Holmes.

Only two games were played in North Two East, Morpeth moving above Middlesbrough into second place with a 24-12 home win against West Hartlepool, while York won 29-8 at home to Bridlington.

Conditions were appalling at Morpeth but the young West side contributed to the entertainment and lost largely because of two costly mistakes towards the end of the first half.

Although none of them were easy, David Tighe also missed four first half penalties and the result was that West turned round 17-5 down after playing with the wind.

Morpeth scored an early pushover try, but then West dominated the next 20 minutes and were finally rewarded when scrum half Tighe broke from a line-out 18 metres out to score.

Then in a rare Morpeth raid the ball bounced off the shoulder of West fly half Phil Wallis straight into the path of a home flanker, who kicked on to score a converted try.

Two minutes later a clearance went straight to the home full back, who counter-attacked strongly to set up a try.

Morpeth's fourth try resulted from forward pressure ten minutes after the interval, but West matched them everywhere except the scrum and winger Steve Black's determination to get involved earned him a late try under the posts.

Northallerton were trailing 5-3 when their Yorkshire Three match at Leeds Corinthians was abandoned at half-time. It will now be played next Saturday, meaning a further postponement of the Yorkshire Shield first round tie against Wath.

Result Preston Grasshoppers 22 Darlington 20.