Billingham 7 Cleckheaton 27

THE first blast of winter caught Billingham cold as any delusions about promotion from National Three North were blown away.

On the back of five successive wins, they began the match hoping to climb into second place. They ended it aware that they had suffered a massive reality check.

Considering they are fourth bottom, Cleckheaton were a surprisingly good side and were not flattered by the 20-point margin.

They dominated possession and were much better suited to playing in the cold, driving rain. They were not the ideal conditions for the first female referee to turn out at Billingham.

The hardy spectators intially gave Sarah Toll a sympathetic hearing, but it ended when she failed to deal adequately with an act of foul play by a visiting forward on the half hour.

A more innocuous clash shortly afterwards brought a yellow card for each side, then Billingham's talismanic skipper Peter Evans failed to reappear for the second half because of a head injury.

The writing was already on the wall because they were level at 7-7 after playing downwind and attempts to play their high-speed game into the worsening elements were futile.

The pitch was fine, but Billingham are pressing ahead with plans for an artificial surface. Planning delays meant they ran out of time before the onset of winter, but the work is pencilled in for mid-March.

As the other Teesside clubs struggle, Billingham have continued to forge ahead and appeared to be overcoming the imbalance between their forwards and backs.

But on this evidence they are still lacking the firepower up front to challenge for promotion.

As their enthusiastic defence halted Cleckheaton's early attempts to progress it seemed all would be well once the initial threat had been repelled.

This impression was reinforced by Billingham taking a 15th minute lead when a quick line-out throw caught the visitors napping.

Full back Elliott Husband took it at pace and raced over unchallenged from halfway. Evans' conversion looked to pass straight over the top of the right post, but was signalled good.

Cleckheaton, however, kept on coming, with their pick-and-go and driving round the fringes proving effective into the strong wind.

In a rare Billingham attack Evans broke strongly from a scrum in his own 22, but a penalty allowed Cleckheaton to work their way back upfield.

With his low centre of gravity, their powerful No 8 took some stopping and he burrowed under the posts on the stroke of half-time.

After more sustained pressure, Cleckheaton went ahead when their fly half dropped a goal, then they scored a converted try from a line-out.

Ten points adrift with 30 minutes left, Billingham began to show more urgency. But the biggest threat came from Husband's counter-attacks from deep.

Their task grew more vertical as the rain became more horizontal, and after adding a penalty Cleckheaton wrapped it up when their dominant scrum earned a try three minutes from time.