DARLINGTON Mowden Park are hoping to persuade South African fly half Warren Seals to return next season after he continued to prove his worth last Saturday.

He landed his fifth penalty with the last kick of the match to clinch a 22-20 win at Hull Ionians.

Mowden have another break over the Easter weekend and will again hope that the rest will allow more players to recover.

No 8 Ollie Hodgson took over the captaincy at Hull with Gareth Nesbit and Rob Conquest ruled out, while Luca Petillo and Ali Bone were still not fit.

Talite Vaioleti was pressed into service in the second row and worked hard, especially when flanker Santi Socino was sin-binned at a crucial time with 15 minutes left.

Seals arrived in November when it became clear that Grant Connon's dreadful luck with injuries would rule him out for the season.

When Garry Law was also injured early last month, Seals took over the goal-kicking duties and has proved deadly accurate, as he did with his 100 per cent record at Hull.

The final kick, awarded for a ruck infringement 30 metres out, denied Ionians, whose kicker must have thought he had landed the clincher with two minutes to go.

Seals also converted the only try, scored after two minutes by Simon Uzokwe, who powered over following forward pressure for his 17th of the season.

A penalty made it 10-0 in the tenth minute, but despite several promising breaks Mowden were unable to finish off any more moves.

When Ionians started to get into the game, a centre hacked on to score by the posts, making it 10-7 at half-time, and another converted try put Mowden 14-10 behind.

The lead kept changing hands through penalties until Seals secured victory.

Darlington's relegation from Durham and Northumberland One was confirmed with five games left when they lost 74-13 at home to Middlesbrough.

Having lost all 21 games, the five bonus points Darlington have gained have been deducted for fielding an incorrectly registered player.

They are 30 adrift at the foot of the table, which is an insult to their pack, who competed well until Boro began to expose the defensive frailties.

Darlington were twice in the lead either side of a try by Boro skipper Rob Bellerby, but 11 more tries followed for the visitors.

Boro had a number of late withdrawals, which saw Nathan Goodison make a try-scoring debut, while winger Ben Wood scored a hat-trick.

Hooker Ash Kearney grabbed two, while there was one apiece for Conner Foley, Miles Colvin, Josh Lynas and the Gaudie brothers, Sam and Joe.

Stockton kept a crowd of former players entertained with a 34-22 win against Novos, Jeremy Good kicking five penalties and two conversions.

The visitors dominated the scrums and came back from 19-0 down just before half-time to trail only 24-22 with ten minutes left. But Stockton finished strongly, replacement back Richie Brown forcing his way over for their third try.

The others resulted from good teamwork, finished off by Todd Highfield and Phil Douglas.

*A try by Darlington Mowden Sharks lock Tamara Taylor could not prevent England Women losing the Six Nations Grand Slam decider 17-12 to France at the Stade de la Rabine, Vannes.

England led 7-5 at the break and it was 12-12 after Taylor powered over. But France scored the decisive try with 10 minutes left.

The Sharks' La Toya Mason was at scrum half, with Heather Kerr and Ruth Laybourn on the bench.