Darlington felt last Saturday's 56-0 thrashing at Halifax was a game too far this season, yet they will have to wait until June 1 to play the Durham Cup final against Westoe.

Time was when the authorities would not allow any rugby after April 30, but now the County Championship takes up most of May and several Darlington players will be involved.

The club hope, however, to be much nearer to full strength for the cup final than they were in the rearranged game against champions Halifax, which concluded their National Three North programme.

Highly influential flanker Martin Howe will have recovered from the broken hand which has kept him out for the last month and player-coach Craig Lee will also be back.

Among the others missing on Saturday were props Joe Oselton and Paul Scott, back row men Joe Naga and Del Lewis, centre Ben Snook and full back David Glendenning.

It meant a baptism of fire at this level for Rory Livingstone, normally a prop, who had to play in the second row.

Darlington had what they felt was a good try disallowed in the first half and trailed only 13-0 at half-time, but once they tired and started to miss tackles it became one-way traffic.

Several of the side will play for Durham against Oxfordshire at Gateshead tomorrow in a match kicking off at 12.30, while lock Richard Snowball has opted to play for Yorkshire.

A product of Richmond School, he has come up through the Yorkshire age groups and is taking the chance to play in the County Championship proper. Durham are among the second tier of eight teams who contest the County Shield, although it still gives them the opportunity of a final at Twickenham on May 28.

Durham wanted Mowden Park hooker Tasi Tuhana in the team, but he has been struggling with injury and has probably played his last match in this country as he is returning to New Zealand shortly.

He said an emotional farewell to Mowden on Saturday after playing in the 35-12 home win against Fylde before presenting the player of the year awards.

After finishing with five successive wins Mowden ended in seventh place, one above Darlington.

Mowden's awards were: player of the year - Mark Bedworth; young player of the year - Jason Smithson; most improved player - Peter Phelan; players' player - Ian Robinson.

Although it was a perfectly clean game, the match against Fylde finished with five players, three of them visitors, requiring stitches. Mowden's casualties were back row man Paul Evans and lock Naude Pretorius, who needed 20 stitches above an eye following a collision with teammate Fosita Tanginoa.

Two of the five converted tries were scored by Tanginoa, playing at open side in the absence of Smithson, who was suspended for a week by the club following his dismissal for two yellow card offences at Halifax the previous week.

Mowden were well on top in the early stages, but no-one claimed a speculative up-and-under when Fylde made their first breakaway and the visitors regathered the ball to score in the corner.

Mowden hit straight back and Bedworth scored tries after nine and 15 minutes, both set up by Martin Shaw and Tom Lauriston, with the second coming from one of the best moves of the season.

The rest of the first half was an error-strewn stalemate, but it was all Mowden after the break and line-out possession followed by good handling brought Tanginoa's first try.

Two minutes later another slick move involving five players ended with winger Michael Breen touching down.

Fylde scored from a catch-and-drive after 60 minutes to make it 28-12, but Mowden came back with another excellent try, five forwards handling before Tanginoa finished it off. Bedworth landed his fifth conversion out of five.