NORTHUMBERLAND schoolboy Andrew Toward showed his senior rivals the way home when he won by one of the biggest margins in the history of the North-East Harrier League at the opening meeting at Wallsend.

The 16-year-old Morpeth Harrier defied treacherous conditions underfoot in the six-mile handicap event to take full advantage of his five minute start and beat fellow slow-pack runner Peter Groark, of Sunderland, by nearly three and a half minutes.

Reigning North-East cross country champion Brian Rushworth answered the call of his club, Sunderland Harriers, for runners on a course not favoured by Wearside athletes, who have claimed it is dangerous, and was comfortably the first fast-pack athlete home, finishing seventh overall and heading clubmate Tim Field by over a minute.

Defending champions Sunderland, who have won the senior men's team title eight times in the last nine years, beat Morpeth by a comfortable 37 points.

Former fell runner Morag McDonnell continued her excellent start to the new cross country season with a commanding victory in the 3 1/2 mile women's race.

The Elswick Harrier, who won the Farringdon Cross Country Open in September, proved too strong for Jarrow's North-East 800m champion Julie Mitchell to win by 27 secs, repeating her victory last year on the gruelling course.

Defending team champions Houghton and Peterlee had stalwart Sheila Allen in third place, but with their third and final counter coming in second last, had to be satisfied with third place behind Elswick, who had their three counters in the first six, and Durham's Elvet Striders.

Guest runner Martin Scaife defied sleet and gale-force gusts of wind and turned the clock back two years as he won the weekend's opening North Yorkshire and South Durham Harrier League meeting at Barnard Castle.

The former Mandale Harrier, who now competes for Chester-le-Street AC, saw history repeat itself as he again beat Great Britain junior international Stephen Hepples in a ding-dong battle on a gruelling course made difficult underfoot after torrential rain.

Hepples, the AAA Under 23 5000m track champion, looked as though he might have the measure of his older rival, but Scaife, who is building up to this year's North-East Cross Country Championships in December, managed to shake him off midway through the third and final lap in the 5.1-mile event.

Scaife, a 29-year-old Teesside bakery manager, came home with 20 seconds to spare and said: "I'm happy with that - but it's the North-East Championships where it really counts."

Two years ago the former North-East half marathon champion looked set for his best-ever cross country season when he won the NYSD opening fixture.

But his season was ruined when he picked up a stress fracture of the shin, which kept him out of athletics for over a year.

Scaife, however, looks stronger and more determined than ever to make his mark as one of the region's top cross country exponents, and Hepples, himself regarded as one of the country's brightest prospects, had no grumbles about finishing second.

"I think he's a stronger cross country runner than I am - I might have had a better chance if the race had been shorter," said Hepples, who is in his final year at Teesside University.

"But I enjoyed the tussle and I am looking to benefit from a hard cross country season when I get back on the track next summer."

Defending senior men's champion, Paul Bentley, of Middlesbrough and Cleveland, finished in fourth position behind another guest runner, Morpeth's Alan Shepherd, who ran in his Army vest.

Another university undergraduate, Ruth Brown, who is a sports studies student at Northumbria University, scored her first victory in the senior women's race.

The 20-year-old Darlington Harrier, also a Great Britain junior international, beat clubmate Bernadette Taylor, a former English Schools 3000m track silver medallist, by half a minute in lashing rain.

Catherine Hare, of Loftus, had a fine race to take third place, claiming the scalp of former senior women's champion Kerry Matthew, an England international.

l Results of both meetings are on page 8.