PHIL Lancaster and Craig Lee will again be using their influence as Durham county coaches to try to strengthen their Darlington side for a promotion push in National Three North next season.

One of the big successes this season has been the introduction of Michael Taylor, who received a magnum of champagne as Man of the Match from main sponsors The Horror Channel on Saturday after Lancaster and Lee were presented with the division's Coach of the Month award for March.

Taylor has switched from No 6 to play at open side during Martin Howe's absence with a broken hand and Lancaster said: "He has been outstanding.

"We always thought of him as a potential second row partner for Richard Snowball, but he can play anywhere in the back five. He has good hands, tackles well, is good at the line-out and wins the ball on the floor.

"He profits from people like Matt Dilworth doing a lot of graft and it has meant we have been able to accommodate losing four or five key players through injury, which we couldn't have done last season. Everyone wants to stay next season but we still need to strengthen the squad and we have a list of seven or eight we will target in the hope of getting three or four. It's not about money. We don't want a dressing room where people talk about who's on what. We have no problems with that."

Along with the other county selectors, Lancaster has selected a squad featuring seven or eight from both Darlington clubs, bolstered by a handful from Westoe and Horden, and they are also interested in the Foreman brothers at Hartlepool Rovers. The youngest, Gareth, is very highly rated.

"We have 35 quality players in the county squad and if we can get our best team on the pitch we feel we can get to Twickenham," said Lancaster.

The first match is against Oxfordshire at Gateshead on May 7, but first Darlington have to complete their league programme away to champions Halifax next Saturday.

They completed their home programme by leapfrogging visitors Kendal into eighth place, but they made hard work of it.

As usual they started slowly and quickly went 10-0 down, but for the next 45 minutes they were the better side. With the wind behind them they quickly turned a 13-8 half-time deficit into a 25-13 lead before allowing Kendal to get back in the game.

Injuries meant Darlington had to play 18-year-old James Snowball, normally a flanker, alongside his brother Richard at lock and they also lacked cover, forcing prop Paul Shepherd to play the full game.

He did well in the first-half, when they were on top in the scrum, but when he surrendered the ball near the end the division's leading try scorer, Kendal winger John Ladell, almost got away to complete a hat-trick.

Darlington hung on and were grateful that Kendal were twice sent back ten metres for backchat, making it easier for David Kell to land four penalties. He also converted two of the three tries to take his tally for the season to 198.

Darlington lost hooker Dan Oselton after 30 minutes, but his replacement David Taylor burrowed over for a try shortly after going on.

Centre Ben Snook was rewarded for a number of powerful runs with a try following a Paul Lee break just after half-time, then Lee scored himself from an inside pass by Rob Stewart.

At that stage Darlington looked like winning by 20 points, but Kendal were in no mood to surrender and scored twice from quickly-taken penalties.

Result: Darlington 3, Kendal 25.