WHILE Mowden Park shrugged off their dire performance in the previous week's derby to beat Morley 38-13, Darlington slipped to third from the bottom of National Three North when they were thrashed 54-7 away to Rugby Lions.

As they have another tough match away to second-placed Blaydon next week, Darlington need to win at home to West Park St Helens tomorrow.

They will be desperately hoping that scrum half Sean Richardson is fit to return after a three-week absence following a minor knee operation.

While his initial replacement, Rob Stewart, lasted only half a game, David Andrew's comeback was ended midway through his second match. After his successful outing against Mowden, he suffered a rib injury after 20 minutes at Rugby and had to retire at half-time.

With no ready replacement available, Craig Lee had to switch from centre with Yarm School product Dan Earl going off the bench to make his debut on the wing.

Andrew was not the only casualty against powerful, physical opponents as No 8 Matt Holmes and prop Dan Miller also had to retire in the second half. It is hoped they will be fit to face West Park, who are only a point ahead of Darlington.

Mowden have a mid-table match at Macclesfield tomorrow and, after three defeats on their travels, they will be looking to reproduce some of the excellent form they have shown in their three home wins.

After the inquest and harsh words following the derby defeat, they responded superbly against a Morley side who began the match in second place.

With New Zealander Shaun Buckley making an impressive debut at hooker, the only blot on Mowden's copybook was the sending-off of replacement lock Naude Pretorius for a second yellow card offence.

The South African replaced the injured Anthony Peck at half-time and was sin-binned after seven minutes for his part in a minor dust-up.

His second yellow card came when he failed to retire ten metres and instinctively tackled the ball-carrier after a quickly-taken penalty when a try could otherwise have resulted.

Despite being down to 14 men for the last ten minutes, Mowden continued to dominate.

With a four-try bonus point already in the bag, they stretched their lead through full back Anthony Mellalieu adding two simple penalties as they finished as strongly as they had begun.

After the disastrous restarts at Darlington, Mowden opted to kick long downwind in the first half, and the visitors proved inept at dealing with it.

From the kick-off they failed to find touch and, four phases later, fly half Lewis Farrer skipped inside two tackles to score from 15 metres, Mellalieu converting.

Morley's handling wasn't good enough to play the high-risk game to which they aspired and Mowden's next four scores all stemmed from the visitors surrendering possession.

First Jason Smithson intercepted after a tap penalty, allowing Mellalieu to land a 35-metre penalty, to which Morley quickly replied.

But when they tried to attack from their own half, an off-load in the centre was snaffled by Mowden skipper Jamie Connolly, who sent winger Peter Phelan away to score.

Morley tried a series of penalties to touch, but they could never secure their own line-out ball, and it was eventually from good continuity, moving the ball right then left, that they scored a try.

Then they were twice guilty of giving the ball away in their own half. First Mowden's powerful centre Ben Allerton took advantage by bursting through almost to the posts, where lock Iain Robinson picked up to score, then Mellalieu landed his second penalty for a 25-8 interval lead.

It seemed the lead might not be enough when Morley scored early in the second half. But the Yorkshire side were comfortably subdued as Mowden were able to send on Ian Keeligan for the last 25 minutes in place of Danny Brown, who had switched to prop to accommodate Buckley.

Mowden's fourth try came when the ball was moved left after two big forward drives and Buckley burst over from close range.

Mellalieu added a good conversion against the wind and his two late penalties put the seal on an emphatic victory.

Any hopes Darlington had of climbing the table after the derby win were dashed on a disastrous day at Rugby.

On top of the injuries, they had skipper Richard Snowball sin-binned for not moving away, the resultant penalty making it 35-7 midway through the second half. Rugby then cut loose and scored three more tries.

After missing the derby because of a 40th birthday celebration, last season's leading try-scorer, Alan Brown, had to settle for a place on the bench.

He went on for Holmes for the last 25 minutes, but was also on briefly at the end of the first half, when Michael Taylor suffered a cut above the eye only to find he couldn't have it stitched as Rugby failed to provide a doctor.

After an early penalty, the first of Rugby's seven tries came from an interception on halfway. But Darlington came straight back by driving prop Joe Oselton over and Charlie Raynor added the conversion.

Rugby missed two penalties, but after the second drop-out they recycled the ball twice before their right winger raced over.

Darlington winger Frankie Coulson was sin-binned on the half hour because he was the next player to infringe after a general warning, but it made little difference as a home flanker joined him in the bin before Rugby scored again just before half-time.

That made it 22-7 at the interval and, after an early penalty, Rugby began their second-half spree when the left winger scored following a scrum.

The only score in the next 20 minutes was the penalty which followed Snowball's yellow card, but three more tries and two conversions in the last 11 minutes took Rugby past the half-century mark.