THE frustrations continued to grow for Darlington Mowden Park when Kelekolio Paino lasted only five minutes on his comeback from a knee injury at Halifax on Saturday.

There are now fears that the influential Tongan lock will be out for some time, spoiling Mowden's hopes of kick-starting a promotion bid with wins against the two unbeaten sides in National Three North.

They lost 25-14 to the leaders and now entertain Waterloo, who impressed Blaydon with a 35-22 home win against the Tynesiders on Saturday.

It was the same old story for Mowden, whose forwards won enough ball to win the game, but the backs could do little with it.

With Martin Shaw recalled by Newcastle Falcons, there was further disruption when full back Iain Dixon fell ill and Gareth Kerr came in at centre for his first league start for Mowden.

He played well and scored after 20 minutes to put them ahead, but there was little spark around him and fellow centre Chris Blacklock went off injured after 55 minutes.

Despite his hat-trick the previous week there had been some criticism of No 8 Tom McLaren and he responded well as the back row outplayed their opponents.

Eni Gisende replaced Paino and won plenty of line-out ball, but he too was injured midway through the second half, giving Jon Dye time to stake an impressive claim for a recall.

But despite their edge up front Mowden rarely looked like finishing anything off after Kerr's try, which stemmed from a cross-kick by fly half Mark Bedworth after following a scrum 20 metres out.

Ten minutes later Mowden kicked deep into the Halifax half but then missed tackles as the hosts ran it back and scored under the posts.

They scored another converted try after Mowden made a hash of dealing with a kick to the corner, but two Bedworth penalties cut the deficit to 14-11 at half-time.

He levelled the scores with a drop goal as Mowden used the diagonal wind to pin Halifax back, but the leaders quickly came back with a penalty and added another after 60 minutes.

Five minutes later a simple backs move produced the try which effectively killed off Mowden, who will now have to prepare to face pacy Waterloo backs who scored three tries from halfway in a superb game against Blaydon.

The visitors led 14-7 after 35 minutes but paid a harsh penalty for having two men sin-binned for persistent infringements.

They conceded 15 points while prop Dan Harper was off to trail 22-14 at half-time, then after cutting the gap to five points they had No 8 Peti Keni yellow carded midway through the second half and conceded another converted try.

Blaydon came back with a try by Ross Windle to make it 29-22 with 12 minutes left, but David Dalrymple's conversion came back off a post.

Waterloo had not previously taken a penalty shot at goal all season, but they opted to kick two late penalties to make sure of victory. Their fly half, Tony Handley, also landed a drop goal while Harper was off.

Blaydon's first half tries came from scrum half Simon Stoker and prop George Donoghue, with Dalrymple converting both and adding a penalty.

In North Two East Middlesbrough won 30-9 at home to Bridlington after opening a 25-3 lead with a good first half performance.

Young left winger Lee Davies scored two tries, evading four tacklers on a 70-metre run when put away by Peter Wright after a scrum was taken against the head. His other try was from close range after Boro had eased off for most of the second half, allowing Bridlington to add two more penalties to the early one which put them 3-0 ahead.

It was all Boro after that and good work by the backs was finished off by hooker Richard Horton bursting through the centre.

Danny Bishop, brought in at fly half as Ian Bircham was injured, converted and added two penalties before a penalty try was awarded when Wright was pulled off the ball as he was about to score.

Stockton comfortably won the bottom-of-the-table battle at Northern 36-13 after fly half Jeremy Good scored a try and kicked three penalties to give them a 14-3 half-time lead.

Winger David Braney scored straight after the break, then Good converted a try by Graham Kell and added another penalty.

Northern finally scored two tries either side of Stockton's fourth, which came from centre Steve Thornton after bursting through two tackles. Good converted for a tally of 21 points.

Following their 14-9 win at Stockton, David Tighe again kicked three penalties for West Hartlepool but this time they lost 13-9 at Redcar.

Flanker Richard Barker scored the game's only try, with Gareth Foreman adding the conversion and two penalties for Redcar.

Horden won 15-14 at home to Sandal, who were well beaten by the time they scored their second converted try at the death.

In a dour game littered with penalties good defence kept out the visitors when they were on top at the start of each half, although they did go 7-0 ahead.

A penalty by Andrew Turner made it 7-3 at half-time and midway through the second half the Horden forwards got on top after two Sandal players and one from Horden were sin-binned for technical offences.

After driving runs by Craig Tait and Michael Thompson the ball was taken to the line by Darren Greenlaw and Thompson finished it off, with Turner converting.

Horden quickly scored again when they opted for a scrum after a penalty was awarded and No 8 Paul Armstrong touched down the pushover try.

Northallerton underlined their promotion credentials in Yorkshire Three by winning 8-5 away to leaders Castleford.

Skipper Simon Robinson touched down an early pushover try and after Castleford equalised replacement full back Jason Bingley kicked the winning penalty five minutes from time.