DARLINGTON Mowden Park centre Cameron Mitchell admits this weekend’s clash with fellow high-flyers Stourbridge will go some way to deciding who finishes top of the pile come May.

Mowden go into this weekend’s clash in third position, three points behind leaders Macclesfield and two behind visitors Stourbridge.

Mitchell admits the focus at Mowden is all about promotion and after just one loss in their past nine games, confidence and team spirit remains high.

“I think it’s a massively important game against Stourbridge,”

said Mitchell. “Obviously we can go into the game with a lot of confidence but we need to keep improving and building on what we’ve achieved thus far.

“We see it as irrelevant which team comes to our ground – everyone in this division is a challenge.

“We take each match as it comes and we’ll play our own game.

“We won’t try to play to anyone else’s game and we’ll play to our strength.

“We’re at home and we have a tempo we play to and hopefully we can do that on Saturday.

Obviously we’ll research how they play but we’ll focus on our own job.

“Promotion is the main goal but we don’t look too far ahead. It’s a long season but we’re confident because we have a great squad. Hopefully we’ll achieve our final goal.”

Mowden may be in third position in SSE National League Two North, but Mitchell insists playing catch-up at this stage of the season behind Macclesfield and Stourbridge is doing nothing to dent morale.

“Ideally we’d like to be at the top but to get there isn’t an impossible task,” added Mitchell. “If we keep performing like we have been week-in-week-out, then it will come.

“Hopefully Macclesfield and Stourbridge will slip up at some point and when we play them hopefully we can take points off them. As I said if we keep performing each week then eventually we’ll get justice and finish the season where we want to.”

  • SSE, proud sponsor of the National and Divisional Leagues, has £10,000 of SSE Energy Credits available for clubs to win. To find out how go to SSERugby.com