Darlington Mowden Park make Loughborough Students pay with second half blitz

ROUGHLY 3,000 of the 4,000 who turned up for the All Blacks' public relations exercise failed to take advantage of the free tickets for Saturday's match.

Any new fans Mowden did gain would probably have wished they had also stayed away during a flat first half. But five second half tries encouraged them to come again.

Four of those tries came in the last 15 minutes as Mowden, leading 17-16, capitalised on the Students' flawed attempts to open up.

The final try was scored in injury time by hooker Simon Uzokwe, his seventh of the season taking him clear at the top of the National One charts.

After five successive defeats a starting line-up featuring nine summer signings lacked cohesion as Mowden struggled to build continuity in the first 50 minutes.

Whenever someone made progress attempts to offload saw the ball go to ground, or monentum was stifled by a penalty being conceded.

They dominated the scrums and twice pushed the Students off their own ball in the first half without making good use of it.

Mowden trailed 6-3 until fly half Garry Law finished from close range following a quickly-taken penalty after he made a half break and passed inside to Ben Frankland.

It remained 10-6 at half-time, a chance going begging just before the break when a penalty was kicked to the corner and Uzokwe peeled round the back of the line-out but lost the ball.

Mowden enjoyed a double stroke of fortune early in the second half thanks to the visiting fly half, probably not the best No 10 to come out of Loughborough.

He missed an easy penalty then had a kick charged down just inside his own half by Josh Redfern. With the full back up, the debutant lock found himself in the clear and hacked on to score.

Law converted but just when it seemed the deadlock had been broken Mowden immediately allowed Loughborough back into it.

They kicked a penalty and from the restart poor tackling allowed two forwards to burst down the middle before sending the replacement scrum half under the posts.

With the gap down to one point Mowden sent on Callum Mackenzie for the last 25 minutes, quickly followed by scrum half Bruno Bravo and powerful blind side Joe Maud. Their impact proved the value of a strong bench.

Mackenzie twice found himself clear with winger Michael Tait outside him in good moves up the left. On the first occasion the flanker tried to reach the line himself and lost possession two metres short, but on the second he drew the last defender and sent Tait over.

Trailing 22-16 with ten minutes left, the Students still looked threatening. But they conceded three more tries through coughing up possession.

Turnover ball at a ruck allowed Mowden to counter-attack and for once an offload succeeded as flanker Luca Petillo rode a tackle and found full back Jamie Barnard, who raced over from 35 metres.

The next came from twice that distance as Loughborough dropped the ball and winger Peter Homan ran through them to score, Law adding his third conversion.

Finally, another charge-down by Redfern allowed him to slip a pass to Uzokwe and with 25 metres to go up the left touchline no-one was going to deny the powerful hooker his customary try.