Tynedale 19 Darlington Mowden Park 53

MOWDEN fans have become accustomed to tension and drama, so on a lovely day at Corbridge it made a pleasant change to witness this one-sided romp.

Tynedale’s ineptitude means absolute confirmation that Mowden can be a force at National One level will have to wait for this week’s visit of leaders Ealing.

South African scrum half Zylon McGaffin should be available again after starting his loan period from Rotherham by providing the spark required to ignite Mowden’s free-flowing rugby.

They have already learned that the top sides punish mistakes and that’s what they did to a Tynedale team who conceded 53 points for the second successive week and clearly don’t have the strength in depth to maintain their impressive start.

Without injured skipper Andy Buist and their dual-registered Newcastle Falcons men they couldn’t do anything right after taking an early lead when a good attack sent left winger Sepp Visser over.

That should have encouraged them to get the ball wide, but they conspicuously failed to do so, even when Mowden were reduced to 13 men with 15 minutes left.

It seemed to typify Tynedale’s day when centre Ben Frankland, the division’s leading try scorer, ignored a clear overlap. When he was tackled opposite man Cameron Mitchell came up with the ball and sent winger Joe Nellany on a 70-metre run to the line.

Several of Mowden’s nine tries came from counter-attacks and four of them were from 60 metres or more. It was a thrilling exhibition as they raced to a 29-5 interval lead; afterwards it was all a bit too easy and after taking off some of their best players they failed to score in the last 15 minutes.

Mowden dominated the scrums and the poor throwing of home hooker Lewis Frankland helped them to steal lots of line-out ball.

Callum Mackenzie continued to stake a strong claim to be a fixture in the back row. He started at open side and switched to blind when Jack Allcock went on after 20 minutes after Ollie Hodgson was injured. With Guy van den Dries moving to No 8 the loss was comfortably overcome.

Mackenzie fielded a kick ten metres inside his own half to set up the first try. He beat two men in a burst up the left and turned the ball inside to the ever-present Henry Robinson, who sent winger Chris McTurk over.

Tom Hodgson converted for a 7-5 lead and it remained tight until Tynedale lost prop Alex Westgarth at roughly the same time as Mowden lost Ollie Hodgson.

While Allcock’s arrival galvanized the visitors, Tynedale imploded and conceded four tries in 15 minutes. Centre Jamie Barnard finished a good move by skipping through a tackle to run in from 20 metres, then Robinson counter-attacked, Nellany chipped to the line and from the resulting five-metre scrum McGaffin nipped over.

When a Tynedale throw went straight to Allcock at the back of a line-out he swerved outside a tackle and turned the ball inside for lock Rob Conquest to score.

It was becoming embarrassing for the hosts when they made a hash of collecting the restart and the ball ran loose for hooker Matt Thompson to send McTurk over from halfway.

Mackenzie dummied over shortly after half-time, then came Nellany’s try before another poor line-out throw allowed replacement prop Ralph Appleby to charge over.

Finally, Hodgson supplied the pass which put Robinson through a hole deep inside his own half. He had support but found he didn’t need it as he raced to the posts, Hodgson adding his fourth conversion.

That made it 53-5 and after easing off Mowden lost Mackenzie and Allcock to the sin-bin, the latter’s halting of a catch-and-drive resulting in a penalty try. Finally, Ben Frankland scooted over for his 11th try of the season, but it was scant consolation for the well-beaten hosts.