THE two Darlington clubs face crucial games tomorrow, one to boost hopes of promotion, the other to stave off the threat of relegation.

Darlington, fourth in North Division One, visit second-placed Macclesfield, while Mowden Park need to end a run of six defeats in National Three North by winning at home to Preston Grasshoppers.

The game at Preston brought Mowden's only victory since beating Tynedale in the opening match of the season, and they also beat the Grasshoppers at home in the Powergen Cup.

They must be due a change of luck after their run of narrow defeats continued with a 20-16 reverse at Waterloo in a game they dominated up front.

Darlington also looked set for a tight game when they led only 5-3 at half-time at home to Aspatria, but they were comfortable 24-6 winners in the end.

The victory was marred by having three players sin-binned for offences which were apparent only to the referee, Marcus Anderson of the Manchester Society.

Yet at the restart following Darlington's final try Aspatria blatantly took out Richard Snowball in mid-air, which compared with the referee's previous judgments should have been a red card offence. But he did nothing.

Craig Lee was the first in the sin-bin after 15 minutes. He stopped his opposite number and as a maul began to form he appeared to be trying to wrestle the ball away, but Mr Anderson decided he was trying to pull down the maul.

Ten minutes later Lee exchanged places with a dumbfounded David Andrew, who in the act of encouraging his forwards as they drove for the line was adjudged to have kneed an opponent.

After 53 minutes it was Bryan Dixon's turn for shoving an opponent out of the way as he tried to recover from knocking on at a restart.

Dixon had an excellent first half, but the two best players were Snowball, who made vital tackles as well as dominating the line-out, and centre Dave Haswell.

A Northumbria University student, Haswell has settled into the team well and showed good handling skills and an eye for an opening on Saturday.

Darlington missed flanker Martin Howe, who was out with a neck injury, and will hope to have him back for the big test at Macclesfield.

The struggle to assert first half superiority resulted from Darlington failing to capitalise on a bright start then having to play for 20 minutes with 14 men.

Full back Kieron Thompson scored a tenth minute try after Dixon drove off the back of a scrum and Phil Lancaster took the ball on before it was moved back to the short side with Thompson in the line.

Darlington should have scored again when Haswell broke from deep in his own half and exchanged passes with winger Frankie Coulson before failing to find Paul Heslop with what should have been the scoring pass.

Haswell was again involved just before the first of two Thompson penalties stretched the lead prior to Dixon's yellow card.

Apart from struggling at the scrums, Darlington coped comfortably with 14 men as their defence was always solid.

They scored again after 66 minutes when Paul Lee broke up the left touchline and his lobbed inside pass fell nicely for the ball to be swept right, with Thompson sending Coulson over.

Steve Stoddart's second penalty for Aspatria made it 16-6 but Thompson replied with his third and in injury time replacement centre Tosh McIntee made a powerful break which led to a try for Heslop.

Mowden's hopes of restoring skipper Aaron Redaelli and centre Anthony Elwine to their side did not materialise.

After six weeks out with a rib injury, Redaelli now faces at least another month on the sidelines after breaking two bones in a hand during training.

Elwine's registration has been confirmed, but he was not available and there was again a lack of spark in the backs as Mowden failed to capitalise on their big territorial advantage.

Winger Chris Mattison scored two tries, the second one giving them real hope as it came seven minutes from time. But a series of five-metre scrums produced nothing and they lost two line-outs close to the line on their own throw-in.

The front row dominated young opponents, but hooker Danny Brown was sent off after 60 minutes for retaliation after being butted by a lock who had been on for only four minutes. He was also dismissed.

A penalty by Mark Bedworth gave Mowden an early lead after impressive lock Ian Robinson won a line-out on Waterloo's throw.

But after ten minutes full back Iain Dixon tried to lay the ball off to Mattison 40 metres out and a Waterloo player intercepted to score under the posts.

Mattison's first try ten minutes later stemmed from good line-out possession, the ball being moved out to the winger, who kicked over his marker and touched down in the corner.

A penalty put Waterloo 10-8 ahead at half-time and after Kelekolia Paino dropped the restart after the interval the home scrum half sold a big dummy and went under the posts.

Mowden enjoyed a long period of pressure, but with no tries stemming from it Bedworth eventually settled for a penalty, only for Waterloo to reply with a penalty after 65 minutes.

Mowden finally capped another good session of play by moving the ball out for Mattison to score in the corner. Bedworth's conversion attempt hit the bar, and the frustration continued to the end