AS they continue to compete with Esher for sixth place in National One, Darlington Mowden Park can go back above the Londoners by beating them at the Northern Echo Arena tomorrow.

Both clubs can expect to move up a further place when Plymouth Albion's 30-point deduction kicks in for going into administration.

Mowden should have Simon Uzokwe back from England Students duty, while flanker Luca Petillo is likely to start after going on from the bench last week.

The Italy A player was making his comeback from a two-month absence at Coventry, where Mowden's hopes of a top four finish were ended by a 27-10 defeat.

They dominated the scrums, but were unable to break down a strong defence after going ahead through their only try in the seventh minute.

Fly half Warren Seals made an excellent break and sent winger Peter Homan over before adding the conversion.

Mowden conceded a lot of ground through giving away penalties at the breakdown and were also guilty of too much aimless kicking.

Poorly-directed kicks allowed Coventry to run the ball back for two of their three tries. The first was a penalty try, awarded for pulling down a driving maul, for which Darren Fearn was sin-binned.

Mowden trailed 10-7 when centre Ben Frankland made a break after 30 minutes, which might have produced a try but for illegal obstruction by a Coventry prop, which earned a yellow card.

Seals kicked the resultant penalty, but that proved to be the end of Mowden's scoring.

Coventry led 17-10 at the break and added their third converted try and a second penalty prior to a scoreless last 20 minutes.

Barnard Castle clinched promotion from Durham and Northumberland Two with a 50-7 home win against Redcar, but celebrations were muted as they want to make sure they go up as champions.

No 8 Rob Stanwix rampaged over for two of the eight tries, while Ali Johnson scored one and had a hand in several others. Young scrum half Rees Doyle scored his first senior try, the others coming from Adam Kicks, Dan Potts and Lucas Summers, with Greg Upton adding five conversions.

Middlesbrough will need to win at home to Durham City tomorrow to strengthen their chances of home advantage in a promotion play-off against Malton and Norton.

The failure to grab a bonus point in a 24-14 win at Horden left them nine points adrift of City, who won 69-14 at home to Stockton and need one point from two games to clinch the Durham and Northumberland One title.

By coincidence, the top two in Yorkshire One are separated by the same margin and also meet this week, when a defeat for Malton at Bradford and Bingley would greatly help Boro.

Charlie Bircham converted all three of Boro's tries at Horden and added a penalty in an encouraging display.