WHILE England coach Clive Woodward will be secretly hoping that Jonny Wilkinson has an easy ride tomorrow, the Newcastle Falcons captain insists he isn't even thinking about the autumn internationals.

Despite being named one of two England vice-captains, along with Gloucester prop Phil Vickery, Wilkinson will first concentrate on levering the Falcons further up the Premiership table with a home win against London Irish.

Then he will go off to join the England squad for their matches against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

"Sunday's game is my most important game of the season at the moment," he said. "You have to learn to switch your mind from one thing to the other and that will be a couple of hours after the game against London Irish."

Although Newcastle, like other clubs who play on Sundays, were asked to switch to Saturday, there have been no requests to rest their internationals from tomorrow's match. They will also include hooker Steve Brotherstone and lock Stuart Grimes, who are in the Scotland squad to face Romania at Murrayfield next Saturday.

The win against Sale last week took Newcastle up to seventh place, while London Irish lost 14-12 at home to Northampton and remain next to the bottom with one win from seven games.

This is a big disappointment for the club who finished fourth and won the Powergen Cup last season, and after intending not to play South African coach Brendan Venter has started to select himself at centre.

The other big threat is the boot of fly half Barry Everitt, who broke the Premiership points record last season with 343.

The Irish squad also includes former Blaydon and Durham County flanker Paul Gustard, who joined the club last season on loan from Leicester.

Epi Taione could return on the wing for the Falcons, but front row men James Isaacson and Matt Thompson have joined the casualties with calf injuries.

Darlington Mowden Park have reverted to last season's front row, with Danny Brown hooking, for today's trip to Liverpool St Helens in National Division Three North.

Brown's switch from prop allows Ian Keeligan to come in for his first league start of the season, with Dave Sinclair completing a trio of local lads in the front row.

There's a fourth in the backs with Scott Thompson earning a recall at centre in place of Matt Howland, who broke a collar bone in last week's defeat by Blaydon.

The backs are otherwise unchanged, with injuries leaving Mowden with no real options at half back, highlighted by the fact that Chris Mattison provides the only cover on the bench. Jonny Golightly is away on business and it remains uncertain when he will be fit to play.

Although hooker Chris Strong is unlucky to be demoted to the bench, his inaccurate throwing-in last week contributed to a poor return at the line-out, and the need to bolster this area has provoked a further shake-up. Mowden have gone for extra height in the second row with Kelekolia Paino selected alongside Ian Robinson. Chris Webb is dropped and Jon Dye goes to No 8 in place of John Hutchinson, who is on the bench.

Studies of the video of last week's match revealed a lot of unforced errors and coach Stuart Whitehead will be looking for a big improvement.

He has had a difficult task since the inspirational Dave Mitchell went into hospital for a bone marrow transplant as part of his brave battle against leukaemia.

The operation is reported to have gone well, but Mitchell needs to be certain his immune system is functioning properly before he contemplates a return to the ground.

Skipper Aaron Redaelli trained for 20 minutes on Tuesday before deciding that his rib injury needed a little more time, while there are hopes that Ian James will be fit to return around Christmas.

West Hartlepool coach John Stabler has the rare luxury of being able to name an unchanged side for the trip to Darlington after last week's first North One win against Aspatria.

Former county scrum half David Tighe will continue as a goal-kicking fly half in a side captained by centre Jamie Connolly.

Another New Zealander, Brett Cullinane, and John Painter provide experience in the front row, while the back row of Henry Tones, Tim Sawyer and Stuart Bennett will hope to match their opponents. Stabler is on the bench along with another veteran in Mark Baggs.