GARETH Breese continued his love affair with Taunton yesterday, taking five for 83 before a day of interesting tactics ended with Durham declining to enforce the follow-on against Somerset.

After the hosts lost their last four wickets on 303 they trailed by 173 and in the final hour Durham stretched that lead to 233 by reaching 60 for one in 19 overs.

After enforcing the follow-on at Derby last week, only for Derbyshire to score 539 for seven in their second innings, Mike Hussey decided not to go down that route again.

But after the loss of two sessions on Wednesday, time is not on his side and he has left himself the ticklish problem of when to declare. He will surely err on the side of caution rather than run the risk of a repeat of last season's match here, when Somerset declared and Breese's 165 not out led Durham to a one-wicket win.

On a good pitch and a fast-scoring ground, Twenty20 Cup semi-finalists Somerset have an obvious match-winner in South Africa captain Graeme Smith plus other fast scorers in skipper Ian Blackwell and 20-year-old James Hildreth.

They cannot be expected to fold again as they did yesterday, although in the only other match when Breese has enjoyed a five-wicket haul for Durham he did it again in the second innings at Scarborough last September.

He earned match figures of ten for 151 at a time when he had previously taken only 14 championship wickets, and he came into this match with seven wickets at 56.3 apiece.

His average barely looked like improving until he took three of the last four wickets without conceding a run.

It began with Blackwell recklessly skying an attempted sweep to fall for 59, then Charl Langeveldt edged the second ball he faced into his leg stump.

Then Richard Johnson drove wide of off stump and edged to the right of slip, where Hussey dived to take a brilliant one-handed catch, his third of the innings.

In the next over Carl Gazzard swung wildly and skied a catch to Phil Mustard, leaving Mark Davies with the excellent figures of three for 29 from 16.3 overs. He also had the prized scalp of Smith, who had moved to 28 with ominous ease when he tried to pull a ball which wasn't short enough for the shot and got a bottom edge which spectacularly removed the middle and off stumps.

The later collapse looked very unlikely when Hildreth and Matthew Wood were putting on 132 in 29 overs for the third wicket, during which Graham Onions conceded 33 in five overs and Wood drove Breese for a huge six, clearing the Ian Botham stand.

Hussey briefly stemmed Hildreth's flow by placing a short cover and short extra cover, but his first interesting decision of the day was to bat on in the morning for 20 minutes, despite the fact that rain was in the air.

Durham added 14 runs for the loss of two wickets before declaring on 476 for nine, and if the purpose was not to stretch the follow-on target it could only have been for the rolling of the pitch between innings to bring up more moisture.

Breese, resuming on 49, swept two runs to fine leg then chipped Johnson straight to mid-wicket. But if that was a disappointment he certainly atoned through his bowling, despite having a very good lbw shout turned down by Roy Palmer.

Whatever Durham have done to upset Palmer, it threatened to come back to haunt them again and it looked as though Hussey offered an apology after words were exchanged when Palmer turned down confident lbw appeals by Davies with Hildreth on nought and nine.

Hildreth, who made 101 and 72 in the equivalent match last season, had a top championship score this season of 70 at Stockton until he made 86 yesterday.

Evidence that Durham have not exactly greased Palmer's palm surfaced in the totesport match at The Oval this season, when he rejected all Durham appeals then gave five of them out.

On the first day of this match he didn't have a decision to make, but first thing on Wednesday he gave out Paul Collingwood lbw, despite suspicions of an inside edge.

Palmer did at least award a bat-pad catch at silly mid-off to give Breese his second wicket after Wood became his first victim, shouldering arms to a ball which turned and bowled him.

That came in the over after Hildreth's dismissal, miscuing an attempted pull off Liam Plunkett to mid-on after getting to 50 off 63 balls and adding 36 off 29.

Blackwell also played with his customary ease, hitting 11 fours in making 59 off 61 balls, and Hussey surely cannot set Somerset any less than 350 today. But he will have to make the decision from the pavilion after putting on 51 in 14 overs with Gary Scott before edging a drive to slip.

* Yorkshire's hopes of forcing the follow-on yesterday were frustrated as rain ended any hopes of play against Derbyshire at Headingley, writes David Warner.

They left the rain-soaked ground still confident that they can win the game and pick up a maximum 24 points but they need a substantial improvement in today's weather to help.

If the weather relents, Derbyshire will resumed their first innings on 247 for seven still requiring 174 to avoid the follow-on.

Yorkshire will not expect to meet too much resistance from the tail which they will hope to dispose of in quick time in order to give themselves a chance of bowling out Derbyshire for a second time before the end of the final day.

Yorkshire have picked up seven bonus points and they will added a further point if they can end Derbyshire's first innings. That would give them 12 points from a draw which would ensure that they stay in the thick of the promotion race.

Read more about Durham here.