Darlington are to field virtually a full-strength team for tomorrow's Durham Cup tie at West Hartlepool, despite anger over last season's competition persuading Phil Lancaster and Craig Lee to resign as county coaches.

Lancaster has also stood down as chairman of selectors, being replaced by Durham's City's Fergus King, while Consett's former Mowden Park hooker Tasi Tuhana will be the new coach.

"I was annoyed about the way the cup was handled," said Lee. "We bent over backwards for the county to try to get the competition completed last season but we ended up having to play the final on our last warm-up date for this season."

Durham start this season's County Championship campaign against Cheshire at Gateshead Fell on May 6, but whether any Darlington players make themselves available remains to be seen.

They beat Westoe in the cup final last August but were not awarded the trophy because they included Alan Brown in the side.

The county claim they requested that new signings should not take part and the sub-committee set up to look into the matter also recommended that Darlington should be thrown out of this season's cup.

That was overruled by the full committee and Lee said: "It's always nice to be county champions so we'll be trying to win the cup again. We need to keep playing well and building on what we have achieved.

"People expect us to be one-dimensional and rely on the driving maul, but we have expanded our game and like to keep the opposition guessing.

"Our winger Frankie Coulson gets linked with a move to West every other week in pre-season, and Stuart Palmer and Michael Taylor are also Hartlepool lads so they'll want to do well."

Lee and Brown are former West players and the No 8 will be keen to get back on the scoresheet after being stuck on 16 tries since he was injured at Blaydon on December 10.

Prop Joe Oselton and flanker Martin Howe are to be rested, with Paul Scott and Del Lewis coming in.

Darlington Mowden Park have little idea when they can fit in their first round tie at home to Blaydon.

Mowden are playing a rearranged National Three North match at Fylde tomorrow and on the scheduled cup semi-final day, March 18, they have another rearranged league game at Kendal.

It seems they will have little option but to play on a midweek evening against Blaydon, who also have a rearranged match away to Macclesfield tomorrow, while Westoe are going to Huddersfield in North One.

That means the South Shields club cannot play their Durham Cup tie at home to Stockton, who are without a game, so the only other tie expected to go ahead is Hartlepool Rovers v Horden.