Mowden Under-13s scored very early in their 34-0 home win over Durham City.

A strong run by Jack Hughes through the middle of the sucked in City's defence and a quick ball from the ruck helped James Park go over in the corner to score the first of his three trys, Daniel Wilson's conversion just dropping short.

This stunned City into action with only some all-round tackling by Chris Isles and Martin Swannell helping Mowden keep City at bay.

In the second half a cool catch and take by full back Chris Emerson and with a pop pass to the supporting backs, who in full flow put James Park under the posts to score, Daniel Wilson converting. Five minutes later another flowing move from Mowden's backs resulted in Liam Hathwaite scoring, conversion missed.

Some strong forward play by Daniel Richardson and Adam Keeligan released the improving Daniel Wilson to run through and score converting his own try. James Park ending the game like he started it with his third score. Mowden rounded off the day watching the Falcons' great win over Leicester.

* Mowden are continually strengthening their squad and welcome all new players to their training sessions every Wednesday at 6pm.

On Sunday March 9, Mowden Park Under-16s took on and beat Hartlepool 22-12.

It took ten minutes of pressure and two missed penalty attempts from Hartlepool to convince Mowden to start playing rugby after a delayed start on a blustery Sunday morning. When they did wake up, they did so one at a time.

The first to emerge was scrum-half Keith Dodds, who began to galvanise the pack with several penetrating drives around the flanks. One of these almost saw him over the line, but a defensive knock-on produced a scrum, and the ball moved quickly out for Jason Elliott to score the try.

Mark Zissler's conversion attempt into the wind was just held up. Next up was Patrick Wilson whose runs onto the ball at speed unfortunately produced yardage but no scores. Inevitably, Hartlepool took up the challenge again, and a long period of pressure brought its reward when, just before half time, a try 10 metres from the posts tied the scores.

The outset to the second half looked brighter. Hartlepool's 22m. drop kick went straight out, and quick, clean ball from the ensuing scrum whipped out to centre Patrick Wilson with a good run to see fly-half Mark Zissler over in the corner, and make a very good attempt at a difficult conversion. Hartlepool came straight back, winning a scrum from the restart.

Mowden swallowed the dummy that kept the Angel of the North satisfied throughout his infancy, and Hartlepool's scrum-half scored under the posts. The conversion put them ahead for the first time.

This signalled the beginning of a period where Mowden's tackling began to fail severely, and Hartlepool could make several penetrating runs through where they should have been stopped in their tracks. However, fate smiled on the home team when prop Chris Davies broke through a maul and suddenly found himself in the unfamiliar world of the three-quarters with open ground between himself and the Hartlepool full-back. Overcoming the shock, he made 30 metres before recycling the ball to Craig Brewster, through another couple of phases and eventually back to himself to score. The conversion saw Mowden ahead again 17-12. More missed tackles produced nervousness amongst the spectators, until a massive clearance kick from Mark Zissler spurred Mowden on to another period of pressure, and good recycling amongst Patrick Wilson, Daniel Alsop, Chris Davies and Keith Dodds saw the latter over for a well-deserved try under the posts. This proved too great a margin for Hartlepool, and Mowden were able to walk out the victors from a game where certain basic skills proved lacking, and where cohesive team play was never really in evidence.

A week later, Mowden Park Under-16s won convincingly 63-5 at Blaydon.

Blaydon have a proud history at the senior level, but their youth section is still under development, and Mowden were able to treat this match greatly as a fitness exercise. Blaydon had a short spell half way through the first half where they began to show some spark and their best player at fly-half was able to crawl through a tackle to score in the corner, but apart from that Mowden scored regularly and almost at will. Chris Dodd scored three tries; Richard Littlefair and Adam Hunt each had two. Other scorers were Chris Davies, Richard Park, Keith Dodds and Jack Else with one each. Mark Zissler contributed four conversions.